Heartland Championship rugby: Steelform Whanganui remain in hunt for home semifinal

Whanganui skipper Douglas Horrocks gets in the centre of a maul against Horowhenua-Kāpiti at Cooks Gardens on Saturday. Photo / Kate Belsham, Ivy Digital

They thankfully didn’t know it at the time, but Steelform Whanganui were standing on the knife’s edge with the ball on their goal-line in the dying minutes of their physical clash with Horowhenua-Kāpiti on Saturday.

As their derby match for the Bruce Steel Memorial Cup was the only 2.30pm kickoff due to the number of other Bunnings Heartland Championship games in round six being earlier inter-island fixtures, the points table had been all but completed, barring the outcome at Cooks Gardens – with the home side tenaciously hanging on at 27-21.

Keep out the visitors with their powerful midfield, big, ball-running pack and mercurial former test playmaker and Whanganui would retain their precious fourth place with a chance to push for a home Meads Cup semifinal.

Give up another converted try and they would plummet to eighth.

Instead, good pressure in the midfield saw Horowhenua-Kāpiti make a rare fumble, followed by over-extending at the scrum, and Whanganui calmly carried the ball up and protected their ruck for the final 90 seconds of play to boot it out and walk away with the five precious competition points.

It was the strongest Horowhenua-Kāpiti team to come to Cooks Gardens this decade – flanker Albert Hemopo, lock Dallas Wiki and try-scoring midfielders Emmanual Solomona and Connor Paki were handfuls.

But the maestro was 43-year-old halfback Kahn Fotuali’i, 35 tests for Samoa and 36 Super Rugby games for the Crusaders, who caught Whanganui napping a couple of times by running or passing in the opposite direction from set pods of forwards.

For the home side, hooker Alesana Tofa was very impressive, going the full 80 minutes against the big visiting pack, while veteran flanker Jamie Hughes brought his signature chop tackles into play.

Other than his rough start to the second half with a fumble, flanker Ekenasio Fiso was strong and was redeemed by forcing Horowhenua-Kāpiti’s final error.

Coach Jason Hamlin had wanted his team to work towards the wider channels and that was typified by first five-eighths Te Atawahi Mason dashing through a half-gap to score the opening try, then setting up a well-worked move for winger Harry Symes away to dot down.

The other winger, Mitai Hemi, scored from close range on halftime while, after being well-marked, centre Alekesio Vakarorogo finally got his one-on-one chance to break through and score the priceless bonus-point try.

“We probably played too direct in that first half, we were playing off the No 9 and just hitting that first three defenders when we could have been shifting them a little bit more,” Hamlin said.

“I think we would have got more pay out of the edge attack, but we got there and when we did score, invariably it was playing a touch wider and running through that.”

But when it became clear Whanganui couldn’t shake the visitors, after fullback Adam Boult slotted an important second-half penalty but was just away with another in the 71st minute to make them safe, the team dug deep to stop Horowhenua-Kāpiti right on their tryline, then force an error and work their way out of danger.

“Good character, we talked about the last time we were here and our second-half performance wasn’t what we deem to be acceptable,” Hamlin said.

“That was a bit of a driver for us today and you could see that character in them, shining through the jersey.

“The boys are doing jobs, Jonty [Bird]’s got a bit about him, he comes on and settles that one aspect of play, a couple of steals there and he made them send more players into the ruck to get rid of him.”

Skipper Doug Horrocks was proud of the way the thin blue line ultimately held under pressure.

“They capitalised on a few mistakes that first 60 minutes, just kept them in the game I thought.

“There was a chance to put them to the sword, it was a hot day and they’re big boys and it was looking like we were going to fire, but just a couple of missteps.

“But it was good to see the composure at the end there, when we got the ball, to kill those last couple of minutes, something we’ve had a couple of issues with, in the past – South Canterbury at home last year – so that was pleasing as well.”

Whanganui 27 (T. Mason, H. Symes, M. Hemi, A. Vakarorogo tries; A. Boult pen, 2 con) bt Horowhenua-Kāpiti 21 (C. Paki, S. Pape, E. Solomona tries; R. Woollett 3 con). HT: 17-7.