Waikato running on empty

1.00pm

It's hard to believe the Waikato rugby team have much left in the tank to take into their NPC first division semifinal against the top qualifiers in Wellington on Friday night.

But there is certainly no shortage of spirit, determination and self belief after their second come-from-behind victory in as many weeks on Saturday to beat previously second-placed Taranaki 26-20 at New Plymouth.

They qualified in fourth place and also won the Ryan Wheeler Memorial Trophy for only the second time.

"Guts" is how Waikato coach John Mitchell summed up his team's victory, for the second week in a row sealed in the final quarter after being behind at the break.

"Again, once we built phases and held on to the ball the pressure told," Mitchell said.

He felt his team had started off with a lack of composure and had got too individualistic in terms of the physical battle, which cost early momentum.

"But as the game wore on we played finals footy out there. They never really got away and we just built ourselves back into the match, readdressed a bit of our attack and defence at half time and went from there."

The team were encouraged to play attacking rugby and turnovers happened but they had to learn to stop transferring pressure on to teammates.

"But you can't fault the guts and I guess that's why you remain in the game for days like this. It's sad in a way that one team's the loser and the other team takes the grapes."

Mitchell said they had expected Taranaki to be tough but his team's self-belief and experience to handle such pressure games had showed in the end. Despite being beaten up physically they would take that with them to Westpac Stadium.

He felt four try-scoring chances had been blown against Taranaki and he was also critical of television match official Bryce Lawrence for not recommending more punitive action in the form of a red card and penalty try for the try-stopping high tackle by Chris Masoe on replacement wing Solo Korovata. Masoe was yellow-carded for the tackle left Korovata concussed and with a broken collarbone.

But goal-kicking hero David Hill said the players were getting used to having things go against them this season.

"We've come through adversity twice lately and managed to come up with wins and in that respect it's good for our belief," Hill said.

After two weeks of breaking matches open in the second half through individual brilliance, Hill said they knew they could trust their talent.

While they were still having to deal with injuries they had no option but to trust the players who went on the field.

"Today we had both our wingers go down and Richie (Kahui) comes on and has to play on the wing and we were still able to go about our business rather than dwelling on it. It's something we've become used to."

Korovata is out for the rest of the season, while the wing he replaced, Sitiveni Sivivatu, was seeing a specialist today for a partial dislocation of his shoulder. Hooker Tom Willis is still out and halfback Byron Kelleher will this week try to prove his fitness.

Roger Randle and Regan King, who have been making their comebacks from long-term injuries with the Waikato B team in the last four weeks, have both been added to the NPC squad this week.

An additional back-up training group of Joel McKenty, Toby Lynn, Dwayne Sweeney, David Van Eyk and Brendon Leonard has been formed with the B team season now over.

- NZPA

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