Was that a record win for Otago against Auckland?
Yes. Yes, it was.
And thanks for asking.
They thumped Auckland 51-17.
One more time.
51-17.
The 34-point drubbing deserves its own line, doesn’t it?
It is also a score previously unthinkable. But Otago coach Mark Brown has this team fizzing.
Despite making a bunch of changes to freshen up some of the troops before the playoffs, they brushed aside their rival at Auckland Grammar School today.
It is very tempting right now to say they gave them a lesson.
But we are better than that, Otago. Well, some of us are anyway.
The teams had previously met 57 times and Auckland had won 40 of them. There had been two draws and Otago had 15 wins.
Otago’s biggest winning margin against Auckland was 11 points in 1991 (17-6) and 1949 (16-5).
There have been a lot of scores gone the other way, but they really are not worth mentioning — not even for context.
The Otago faithful did not have long to wait for their team to get into their stride.
Halfback Nathan Hastie dived over from the base of a ruck five minutes into the contest. But the hard work had been done with excellent offload from Will Tucker to Thomas Umaga-Jensen, who was pulled down just short.
Auckland fullback Cohen Norrie replied for his side almost immediately.
He threaded his way through Ben Lopas and Harry Taylor and ran 35m to score.
Otago was relentless at the ruck and diffused potential problems with some important turnovers.
And their kicking game was on point as well.
Liam Coltman put in a driving tackle to sum up the effort in the opening 20 minutes.
Umaga-Jensen had several dips at the line and eventually barged over from a ruck in the 24th minute.
Cameron Millar was rewarded for a tireless chase off his own clearance. He ran 60m to charge down a kick from Rico Simpson and dotted down.
Big effort there.
Otago No 8 Christian Lio-Willie had a try ruled out for an earlier knock-on in the lead-up.
But just before the break Highlanders-bound prop Angus Ta’avao was yellow-carded for dragging down a maul and Otago was awarded a penalty try.
Coltman was on his way to the line, no doubt.
They led 28-5 at halftime.
The rain bucketed down early in the second spell.
Millar drilled two penalties to push the lead out more.
It was ruthless stuff — like pulling the wings of an insect.
Auckland needed to find a response and Highlanders winger Caleb Tangitau finished off in the corner.
Any hope was soon snuffed out.
Sam Gilbert made a nice return run and linked up with Hastie, who shovelled the ball to Oliver Haig and he offloaded to Sam Nemec-Vial for the try.
Josh Tengblad, A-One Lolofie and Riley Lucas all got on with plenty of time to run in the second half.
Lolofie even peeled off from a lineout drive to score. Tengblad grabbed the lineout.
Nice job by the rookies there.
Auckland No 8 Sam Hainsworth-Fa’aofo spun out of a tackle and crashed over for a consolation try.
But Millar brought up the half century with a penalty when the game was all but done.
He drilled all eight attempts at goals and grabbed a try for a haul of 24 points.
*Statistics sourced from Rugby Database.
