Auckland 29
Bay of Plenty 14
Auckland have reignited their season by grabbing their wet-weather tactics and sensibly dismantling competition frontrunners Bay of Plenty 29-14 at Eden Park.
The hosts had some fortune, some flair and plenty of commonsense about their play yesterday as they discarded their ragged early-series form to send the Bay to their first defeat of the national provincial championship.
The bonus point victory for Auckland pushed them into mid-table and will have given them more conviction about their work and prospects of maintaining the momentum.
"It was quite clearly the best [performance] so far this season," coach Mark Anscombe said. "That was pleasing because for the first 20 minutes we played as we talked about the game, we played at the right end of the park, and then put them under pressure and scored points.
"We let up a bit 10 minutes before halftime which gave them a bit of hope but we wrestled it back in that second half. I thought the defence was good at crucial times and we kept our discipline."
Anscombe said the downpour which hit the park just before kickoff and continued to make conditions awkward throughout the match had not affected the side's gameplan. They always intended to kick for field position and, if anything, the rain might have hindered the Bay's response.
The coach hoped he would still have his three current All Blacks, Joe Rokocoko, Jerome Kaino and John Afoa, for Auckland's next game against Otago in Dunedin on Sunday as long as they could then get them to assemble with the national squad that night in Hamilton.
Rokocoko opened the scoring yesterday for Auckland when he backed up Paul Williams and Isaia Toeava as they broke from a tapped penalty, and later scored a fine solo try, bumping and barging past three defenders.
Daniel Bowden profited when the Bay fumbled a pass near their goal-line while Williams was awarded the fourth and bonus point try on the advice of the assistant referee.
Mid-match there was an unfortunate moment for the Bay when referee Matt Stanish called a forward pass as Bay wing Jason Hona intercepted and had a clear 55m run to the line. A converted try would have pulled the Bay within four points of Auckland, and who knows what it would have done to their confidence.
Stanish apologised as he realised his unintentional gaffe in a period when the Bay also had a handy penalty reversed for foul play.
There was a bucketload of endeavour from both sides but the conditions were the dominant factor throughout.
"We thought we had a solid gameplan but probably did not execute it that well," Bay assistant coach Steve Miln said. "Obviously with that wind, they kicked and kept us down in the corner and we had too many errors. Those two early tries got us into a hole and it was quite hard to get out of it."
One defeat had hurt them as teams compressed on the points table this weekend but, at the start of the year, the Bay would have taken four wins from five if they had been offered that prospect, he said.
"We backed ourselves especially when we saw the conditions. It suited us because we have got a strong kicking game and we were quite excited about it but we did not get access to it. It was a good learning curve for our boys."
Auckland's victory gave them the John Drake Boot and captain Benson Stanley applauded the contribution of his All Blacks, who had lifted the side's intensity. The rest of the side had to learn to emulate their play.
For the Bay there was the consolation of a try after the hooter when No 8 Colin Bourke broke from inside his 22 and offloaded for Nigel Hunt to skate the rest of the field.
But the bus ride home would have been more inquisition than celebration of a day in the smoke.
