Otago's focus turns to next shield defence after first win away

Ben Herring.
Ben Herring.
Otago has two huge Ranfurly Shield defences on the agenda and has moved on quickly from bagging an important win on Saturday night.

In what was a round of upsets, Otago beat North Harbour 21-15 at North Harbour Stadium on Saturday night, its first win away from home and victory over a premiership team this season.

It was hard work but the side dug deep when momentum was against it and it was losing every statistic that seemed to matter.

But taking some chances which came along, Otago took two opportunist tries in the first half and then had more ball in the second half, and was in the end a comfortable winner.

Otago coach Ben Herring said he was proud of the effort the side put in, especially in the first half when North Harbour had all the ball and domination at scrum time.

''The intensity was good and in that first half we just hung in there. There as a lot of steel there and a bit of an edge to our game,'' he said.

''That I think was some blowback from last week's game and that is how it rolled for us.

''Our forwards were awesome in the middle and that fed into our game. But there are things we can improve on. We probably didn't create as many chances as in previous games and we were not clinical enough at times, which had been a strength of ours this year.''

Otago was lucky to be ahead 14-7 at the break, as it was struggling at scrum time and conceded eight penalties in the first half.

It conceded just the one try, to Harbour winger Matt Duffie, while managing to pick off two of its own.

Loose forward James Lentjes scored a try after five minutes when a kick through was fumbled by North Harbour winger Mark Telea and Lentjes dived on the ball. Otago midfielder Sio Tomkinson grabbed an intercept on halftime and ran 50m to score.

Aleki Morris-Lome got the third try, seven minutes after halftime, running on to a kick from Josh Ioane.

Otago had a long spell near the North Harbour tryline halfway through the second half but could not score.

Herring was not disappointed with the approach taken by Otago in this period, saying the team tried hard but it simply did not work.

Lentjes left the field shortly after scoring and has bad haematoma on his leg and is doubtful for this week. There are a couple of other bumps and bruises but spirits were high for the side.

Otago takes on Waikato this Sunday in a Ranfurly Shield match while Canterbury comes to the stadium on October 5.

The task that awaits Otago for the next two weeks is apparent for Herring.

''We talked about it straight after the game. We put this result right behind us and now have a couple of big shield games coming up.''

In other matches over the weekend, Manawatu scored an upset win over Canterbury 32-29, Hawke's Bay beat Taranaki 35-17 and Tasman beat Waikato 35-26.

Yesterday, Wellington beat Auckland 34-15 in Auckland, and Bay of Plenty trounced Northland, 46-22, in Whangarei.

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