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Written by Cold & Grumpy Kiwi Pie
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Friday, 28 July 2006 |
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 I watched this game with expectations of a comfortable victory for the Bay. Maybe with a couple of late tries to clinch a 20 point winning margin. For the first 5 minutes, it all went to plan, an early penalty and we looked in control.
The next 75 minutes were fairly horrendous as we contrived to drop the ball, lose the ball at every other ruck and miss tackles in midfield. Hawke’s Bay were fairly content to live off turnovers and get field position but they were very organised in defence.
Positives for the Bay? Not many really. Reid went off early to be replaced by Delany who was the only spark in the backline all night. Williams again failed to impress me at 1st five, a pattern that has continued ever since his great game against the Lions. Maybe we were spoilt through having Jacko run the backline but I always sense that Williams isn’t really reading the game, just randomly choosing whether to pass, run or kick. Delany has a very different style but is much more instinctive and a brave defender given his slight stature. The new midfield of Ierome and Aporo showed some promise but on defence they were found out a couple of times, one of which led to the first try to the Magpies. The wings Baxter and Tahana saw little ball and thus did little to impress. Nutbrown was OK. Now to the forwards. Well as a unit they weren’t hitting the rucks with sufficient numbers. Every Hawke’s Bay tackle caused a mass of their forwards to dive in with gusto while the Bay players were getting set for the next phase. Especially in the first half, there were a mass of turnovers, many of them were illegal but the Bay forwards need to work harder to retain the ball. There were also penalties for holding on although there never seemed to be a defender on their feet so I was a little baffled by those calls, generally the ref seemed to favour the defending side at the ruck. Lineouts were very dodgy, Pareanga came in as a late replacement for Lutui and I hope big Aleki is back very soon. The first scrum was great as we monstered them, after that it was parity. Very few forwards seemed to gain much ground in traffic until Bourke came on at 8 and sparked things a little. What else? Well it was pretty bloody cold but a reasonable turnout for a friendly I thought. Unfortunately there wasn’t much for the Bay fans to get excited about but a few black and white striped jerseys were spotted and those guys seemed happy enough! Lots of work to do before we play Wellington, starting with a trip to Hamilton on Saturday. Waikato are playing their strongest available side so it is time for us to stand up or work out how to spell repechage.
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