Otago broke a 35-year drought at Eden Park when they downed Auckland 32-25 in a national provincial championship rugby match in Auckland tonight.
Down by six at halftime, Otago were a transformed team in the second half and ran in three tries in 10 minutes to lay the base for
a solid win.
With three games in seven days, Auckland coach Mark Anscombe made a raft of changes from the team which lost 33-40 to Canterbury on Sunday.
Captain Daniel Braid, Josh Townsend, Chris Lowrey, Gareth Anscombe and Hadleigh Parkes all backed up, but the rest of the team were all fresh.
Sharpest of all looked former All Blacks winger Joe Rokocoko, who mesmerised the Otago defence 12 minutes into the game after fullback Glenn Dickson gave Otago an early 3-0 lead through a well-struck 45m penalty.
Auckland capitalised on some good work at the breakdown with quick ball to Anscombe, who offloaded to Braid. A quick recycle saw the ball shovelled wide where Rokocoko surfaced on the blindside wing to waltz through the Otago defence and score.
Anscombe converted, and although Otago responded with another Dickson penalty to trail 6-7, Rokocoko again unstoppable 20 minutes in as he ran outside Otago prop Kees Meeuws to touch down unopposed.
A penalty apiece saw Auckland go into the halftime break with a 15-9 lead.
Substitute flanker TJ Ioane triggered the Otago comeback with an opportunist's try from a loose Auckland lineout 15 minutes into the second half.
Dickson sunk the conversion, another penalty, then finished off a hectic five minutes when he latched on to a Tony Brown cut-out pass to score in the corner.
Barely two minutes later, winger Buxton Popoali'i made it three with a sizzling 60m run down the left after collecting an ill-advised Auckland chip kick.
Auckland finally started to find field position, and pulled one back with 10 minutes to go when replacement prop Pauliasi Manu powered over to haul back the margin to seven.
But despite testing the Otago defence mightily in the last stages, Auckland couldn't break through.
- NZPA
