Rugby: Otago buries Tasman hopes

Otago's Hayden Triggs. Photo / Getty Images

Otago 21
Tasman 0


Not a great week for the officials, nor for Tasman, it has to be said.

Fresh from the embarrassing end to Thursday night's game for the ages between Canterbury and Hawke's Bay, a referee, this time Jonathon White, again found a reason to disallow what appeared to be a perfectly good try.

It didn't have such dramatic repercussions as Chris Pollock's decision not to award a fair try to Sona Taumalolo, but it did effectively kill the game off as a contest.

With just a few minutes remaining until halftime, former Otago enfant terrible Lucky Mulipola was brought down just shy of the line by some desperate defence. In the process of going to ground, the Otago hands slipped off the Tasman winger and he took advantage to propel himself to the line again and score.

That would have made the score 14-5, possibly 14-7, to Otago with halftime rapidly approaching. Game on. Instead the home side profited from White's decision to penalise Mulipola for holding on to the ball in the tackle. A few ticks of the clock later they were in under the posts at the other end, 21-0. Game over.

It is hard to imagine, though, that Tasman would have threatened Otago anyway. Celebrating veteran prop Kees Meeuws' 50th game for the province, the blue-and-golds had more snap in everything they did. While Tasman might have the flair, Otago had the more coherent game-plan and, with Adam Thomson and fullback Ben Smith again prominent, a bit more class.

It was a disappointingly passive performance from the visitors, given a win would have given themselves an outside chance of sneaking into the playoffs ahead of their final round-robin match at home to Wellington on Friday.

Tasman now hasn't scored a point since Andrew Goodman landed a field goal with 15 minutes remaining in their round 10 win over Northland.

"We think of ourselves as an attacking side but it's just not happening for us," said a dejected Goodman.

The worst thing is, that 175 minutes of futility came at a time when Tasman was ensconced in the top four and would have made the New Zealand rugby union seriously edgy about ousting them from the top flight next season.

Otago opened them up early with a well-worked try to prop Ben Nolan and Tasman never regained their equilibrium.

The rest of the match played out like a classic 'dead rubber', with Otago trying to salvage some pride in a disappointing season and Tasman trying any number of shortcuts that did not involve hard graft.

A short case of first-half fisticuffs was about as close as they came to asking serious questions of the home forwards.

Given the ascendancy of Southland and the ongoing dominance of Canterbury, this game could have been billed as the battle of the junior sides in the two South Island Super 14 franchises.

That will stick in the craw of the many Otagoites who still suffer under delusions of grandeur, but a quick scan of a near-deserted Carisbrook when compared to a keen crowd at Rugby Park the night before, should provide the best indication of where the passion for rugby in that troubled franchise lies.

That is unlikely to change unless Otago can eke out more than two or three performances like this per season.

Otago 21 (B. Nolan, B. Smith tries; G. Dickson 3 pen, M. Witt con) Tasman 0. Halftime: 21-0.