It was men against boys as Wellington ran rings around a hapless Otago team to claim a 49-22 victory at Forsyth Barr Stadium.
The Lions played a fast-paced game as they put on an outstanding showing of offloading, support play and running rugby to run in seven tries.
It must be said, though, that Otago's defence was woeful, particularly in the first 25 minutes where they fell off too many tackles and almost handed four tries to their opponents.
This as much as anything was the reason for the dominance displayed by Wellington who didn't need telling twice and took the chances presented to them.
The other key area where they had it over Otago was at set piece time, where they completely destroyed an inexperienced Otago pack in the scrum and made a mess of their lineout. This ensured the Otago backs never got front foot ball to work with, while the lethal Wellington backs were able to operate with ease.
It has been an area where Otago has struggled all year, but so far they have gotten away with it. This time they didn't, and really showed the difference between the top teams nd the rest in this year's competition.
Otago did show some fight in the latter stages of the first half, scoring a try of their own and beginning to cause Wellington to make more mistakes. But there remained plenty of work to be one as they trailed 35-10 at the break.
The second half saw Otago concede just two more tries while scoring two themselves. Part of this came from an improved effort, but also came as a result of a high error rate from Wellington. They looked to play a very open game as they launched a series of long range attacks from deep in their own half. Otago were made to scramble and applied enough pressure to force a mistake.
There were few standouts, as the forwards were bullied while the backs simply didn't get enough chances. Both locks were busy around the field, while Gareth Evans did well behind a struggling pack. Jacob Ellison made a huge difference upon his introduction, making multiple tackles and improving the scrum.
In the backs Hayden Parker kicked well and was strong on the tackle, while Marshall Suckling was busy as always.
But poor defence was the story of the day. It was as simple as that. Falling off too many tackles and giving Wellington far too many chances.
Otago will now host Auckland on Thursday night in what will be their last game of the round-robin.