Well taming is maybe too strong a word, we kept the Taniwha in its place. Just about!

They day started way too early with me and the 2 Mini-Mafia on the road by 8 with a long drive up north. After meeting up with fellow Mafia at the fine establishment of Wendy’s on Auckland’s North Shore, it was just a 2 hour dash to the terraces of Okara Park where we were joined by HoriBOP, just in time as usual.

While he posed for pictures with half the population of Whangarei we watched the game. I had a bad feeling about the game from the first minute and strangely enough, I still felt bad about it after we turn down a kick for goal, take the lineout and Filise storms over for the try. It doesn’t seem right, we are used to kicking for goal, taking the points and applying pressure that way. The fancy Auckland style is uncomfortable for us, I hope we go back to basics against Southland and work for the win first before we worry about a bonus point.

We then blew another couple of tries with the line beckoning to us and the first chance Northland have in our 22 they go over for the try. All day our defence wasn’t aggressive enough (until in fact the last few minutes when we were desperate) and we conceded too many easy yards. We then perfected the midfield move with Jacko holding the ball up for a runner, ending up 2 yards from him and firing it at his chest for another knock-on. We started to get depressed. And then out of the blue, we ran in 2 good tries to Latu and Cashmore just before half-time with good passing and support running, it was 19-7 and surely we would kick on for our inevitable victory?

Time for a word about the young referee I think. It is easy to criticise a young guy taking his first big game but you can’t help thinking they threw him this one for experience knowing that both BOP and Northland would be out of semis contention at this time of the season. Well he was right out of his depth, we destroyed the Northland scrum on many occasions but all he did was reset it and the rucks were a mess as Northland dived in to kill our ball (ref’s decision: unplayable – scrum). I’m sure Northland had similar complaints, certainly there were a series of Steamers knock-ons that weren’t whistled.

Any confidence we had at the break quickly dissipated as we dropped and turned over even more ball, Northland came back into the game with another try and we were sweating on a narrow lead until a Tupai break was supported by Bourke and then Simpkins threw a brilliant Hail Mary pass over his head for Tipoki to finally score his first try of the season. Time for a high five from Hori that almost cracked my wrist and all we had to do was hold onto the ball for the win. Except of course we couldn’t, penalties allowed Northland to kick into our 22 and it was almost too easy for them to score their 3^rd try and be only 5 behind with minutes left. The clock then stopped or at least it appeared to and Northland were back in our 22 and pressing with a lineout then a series of scrums. Suddenly we woke up to the fact that whole season could be going down the gurgler, the tackles had some venom and we held out for the 5 points. At the end there was no great rejoicing, just a huge feeling of relief.

After the game the players seemed equally relieved that they had got out of the game with mission accomplished. We were still in touch with the leaders, 2 games left and 2 wins will see us safely into the semis.

Nobody had a great game, but the front row looked dominant, Latu and Bourke were everywhere as usual but the backline stuttered and Jacko had his worse game of the season. With Tipuna taken off with his shoulder problem again, Hubbard again covered well. It was probably the best time to get a team performance like that out of the way, hopefully there will be a large crowd at Rotorua for our final round-robin home game and to give a great send-off to Jacko in his last home game.