Otago Daily Times

Early efforts not enough for Old Golds to clinch victory

IF only.

If only rugby games lasted just 40 minutes.

If only the most dominant force in Heartland Championsh­ip did not have an immensely strong bench and a propensity to blow teams away in the second half.

That was the story in Temuka on Saturday as South Canterbury came roaring home to defend the Hanan Shield with a 4431 win over old rivals North Otago.

The Old Golds, as they did in 2023, gave the threetime defending Meads Cup champions a heck of a scare.

They raced to a 140 lead inside 10 minutes through converted tries to prop Bradley Harewood and fullback Ben McCarthy.

Midfielder­s Tini Feke and Hayden Todd then got in on the act to lead North Otago to a 285 advantage shortly before halftime. But the rest of the game belonged to South Canterbury. They closed the gap to 2817 at halftime and were simply irresistib­le in the second half. Winger Peala Matakaongo scored two tries for South Canterbury and prolific No 8 Siu Kakala also got on the scoreboard twice.

North Otago cocaptain Mat Duff said there were plenty of positives from the first half an hour of the game.

‘‘We sort of just bullied the bullies, really,’’ Duff said. ‘‘We got them on the back foot and it felt like they really didn’t have any answers when we put them under pressure, and everything we were doing was going to plan.

‘‘Just a couple of mistakes led to soft tries to them in the last 10 minutes of the first half, which really kept them in the game.’’ South Canterbury executed well in the second half and the Old Golds were punished by some more mistakes, Duff said. North Otago have slumped to 10th in the Heartland Championsh­ip with one win from five games and might need to win two of their remaining three games to squeak into the Lochore Cup and maintain their 24year playoff streak.

‘‘We know we’ve got skill across the park. There is still some silverware on the line and we know we can get back on track.’’

It was a weekend of highoctane rugby in the Heartland Championsh­ip with nine of the 12 teams scoring at least 30 points.

Both East Coast and WairarapaB­ush set records. Each scored 45 points — a Heartland record for a beaten team — as Thames Valley beat East Coast 6045, and Horowhenua­Kapiti beat WairarapaB­ush 6245. Whanganui stayed second on the ladder with a 4826 win over Mid Canterbury, Buller beat Poverty Bay 3628 and King Country beat West Coast 4317.