Wellington pound Northland in second half

Wellington scored six tries in the last 30 minutes to cruise to a 65-12 win over Northland and maintain their lead in the NPC division one rugby championship.

They scored nine tries in all, following last week's 73-28 victory over likely semifinalists Taranaki, and head to Invercargill for the last-round game against Southland next Saturday as favourites to finish first in the competition. That would earn them a home semifinal and final.

There was further good news for the home side when powerful midfield back Ma'a Nonu returned to the field today in the last quarter at Westpac Stadium.

Nonu showed he hadn't lost any of the superb form he was in before missing three weeks of action with a broken thumb.

Nonu scored one of their six second half tries after Wellington woke up after a flat patch early in the second half and made Northland look every bit the team at the bottom of the competition.

It took Wellington nine minutes to make an impact on the scoreboard against winless Northland but after Piri Weepu's penalty, outside backs Lome Fa'atau, Conrad Smith and Sireli Bobo scored a try each.

Weepu added a conversion and a second penalty to give Wellington a 23-7 lead at halftime.

But Wellington looked to have lost their way early in the second half.

Replacement prop Stan Wright scored Northland's second try 10 minutes after halftime, adding to second five-eighth Manu Burkhardt-Mcrae's converted try in the 23rd minute.

After showing little urgency and imagination for the first 15 minutes of the second half, Wellington were stung into action by first five-eighth Riki Flutey.

He raced in for two quick tries as the forwards and backs combined in a display of delightful rugby.

Wellington then maintained the momentum to allow Nonu, flankers Scott Waldrom and Jerry Collins and replacement front rower Mahonri Schwalger to cross for tries.

Wellington coach John Plumtree said his team finished as he had expected them to -- with a flourish.

But he said the playoffs were not in his mind as they had a match away from home left.

The race to host the two semifinals remains open until the final round games next weekend.

One of Plumtree's star players, No 8 Rodney So'oialo, said the players had spoken about maintaining the pressure on Northland throughout the game.

"I think we did that pretty well though we had a flat patch around halftime," he said.

"It's just the way the game evolved, but we did make quite a few errors which we can't afford to make against better teams. We should have got a few more tries.

"We wanted to finish well after that third quarter when nothing was going right for us and I'm quite happy about the way we executed our game then."

Wellington 65

(Riki Flutey 2, Lome Fa'atau, Conrad Smith, Sireli Bobo, Ma'a Nonu, Scott Waldrom, Jerry Collins, Mahonri Schwalger tries; Piri Weepu 2 pen, 5 con; Jimmy Gopperth 2 con)

Northland 12

(Manu Burkhardt-Mcrae, Stan Wright tries; Julian Huxley con).

Halftime: 23-7.

- NZPA


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