Eden Park entertainers deserve better audience

Otago's Neil Brew fails to make headway in the tackle of Tasesa Lavea (left) and Daniel Braid during Auckland's convincing win. Phil Walter / Getty Images

Auckland 48 Otago 7

It's a pity nobody bothers to show up at Eden Park these days because there is a bit of entertainment to be had.

No one is saying it's top notch but it's not bad and Auckland are definitely warming to their work. They deserve to be supported by more than 11,000 people as, by the second half, there was a real fluency and command about the way they were playing. What impressed most was they kept their structure even though the game was won soon after halftime.

The forwards dogged it out at the breakdown and put pressure on Anton Oliver at the lineout, while the backs, led by a rejuvenated Tasesa Lavea and the blockbusting Sam Tuitupou, ran the right lines and passed with precision.

Otago were swamped by the speed and width of Auckland in the second half and really didn't look like they wanted to be out there.

If Auckland can build on last night's performance, when they strung together some nice phases and pulled off some classy interchanges within the forwards, then it might just be that the next time they run out at Eden Park they do so as proud holders of the Ranfurly Shield.

They will need to tidy up their execution, which was once again a little clumsy at precisely the juncture it needed to be on the money.

For most teams, breaking the line is the hard bit, but for Auckland it is the easy bit and their problems come later in the piece when they have to finish what they start.

Tuitupou made two first-half busts that deserved to be iced with something better than glaring forward passes. The game could have been done and dusted before halftime if there had been someone running straight and hard after the Otago defence had been stretched.

Against Otago, Auckland could rely on the law of averages. They knew the errors would not be costly, as soon enough they would convert a chance. But when in Christchurch this week playing for the Shield, coach Pat Lam will want to see the line-break-to-tries scored ratio improved.

That might seem a bit harsh on a night when Auckland nearly cracked the half-century but this is a team that has set its standards high.

Lam will also have his hands full working out who to leave in and who to take out for the shield challenge.

All Blacks Keven Mealamu and Ali Williams are both available again but Derren Witcombe got through a power of work and he clearly knows his scrummaging onions.

Brad Mika and Kurtis Haiu can feel satisfied they did all they could to keep their jerseys, with Mika especially running into a rich vein of form.

The permutations in the backs will present Lam with no less of a headache. Lavea gave his most commanding performance for some time. A maligned figure for the Blues, provincial rugby is more his bag. He nudged the ball accurately into the corners and by the second half had the confidence to tilt his lance.

When he picked off an interception on halfway and eventually made it over for the score, we got a sense of how confident he really must have been to be backing his running game. Lavea is in no danger of ever being drug tested and, as a result of his lack of explosive pace, he's never going to be a giant of the game but he did a grand job of coaxing big performances out of his midfield partners.

With a bit of time and space and able to run off the powerful Tuitupou, the under-pressure Isaia Toeava was able to do enough to suggest the All Black selectors were not totally doo-lally to pick him.

He is gifted and early in the first half he flipped out an incredible pass from behind his pack. He also backed up well for his try and showed enough gas to suggest he really could play on the wing if asked.

Whether he did enough to hold off Ben Atiga remains to be seen but he certainly will be feeling a lot more comfortable in his own skin this morning.

Auckland 48 (I. Nacewa, T. Moa, A. Blowers, I. Toeava, T. Lavea, L. Munro tries; B. Ward 4 cons, pen; B. Atiga con)
Otago 7 (G. Zampach try; N. Evans con).
HT: 20-0.