Southland stopped its slide and in the end won with ease, defeating a woeful Otago side 32-15 in Invercargill last night.
Southland was strong on defence, did the basics well and when the chances came along they grabbed them,
It scored four tries to two and kept the visiting team scoreless in the second half after Otago led 15-10 at the break.
Otago caught the bus down yesterday and looked to have left plenty on board — like accuracy, composure and ball security. Southland was strong as usual on defence and got into the game the longer it went on. Otago was light years away from the side which beat Canterbury last week.
With the loss Otago gives up the Donald Stuart Memorial Trophy, and has let Hawke’s Bay in with a chance to go top of the Mitre 10 Cup championship table.
Southland, with five points from the game, kept itself in the playoff picture.
Otago first five-eighth Josh Ioane had a match to forget, missing four shots at goal, including one he could have thrown over, and being inaccurate in most facets.
The visiting side made too many errors and Southland simply hung around and took the chances which came along.
It scored a try right at the start of the second half. Ioane tried to run the ball back from deep but threw a poor pass when tackled. It was picked up by Southland flanker Matt James who sprinted 50m to score.
Southland kept banging away and Otago kept logging the mistakes. It dropped the ball in front of its own posts in an ambitious play and paid the price.
Winger Tevita Latu ran on to a short ball off the scrum and was in under the posts. Replacement hooker Talemaitoga Tuapati iced the cake with a try under the posts in the last minutes.
Best for the Southlanders was Lamborn and James; halfback Logan Crowley was busy and lock Mike McKee was into everything.
Otago had few highlights to write home about, and it needs to put this one into the dunny quickly and move on.
The home team exploded out of the blocks and scored within four minutes of the opening whistle.
Otago tried to clear from the kick-off but its kick was partly charged down.
Southland picked up the ball and rolled down the field. After a couple of goes at the line it tried the rolling maul off a lineout and skipper Lamborn went over.
Otago though came back and winger Freedom Vahaakolo scored a stunning try just before the quarter-hour mark.
He received the ball 20m out and proceeded to weave his way round four defenders and plant the ball for the five-pointer.
Otago was rather wasteful in the rest of the half as it never got any continuity going, and at times stupidly got into a slugfest with the Southland forward pack.
Southland was content to keep the ball close to its forward pack and made some good yards around the ruck. Its played some clever inside balls to expose the Otago defence.
Otago regained the lead with the last play of the half when Sio Tomkinson, playing his 50th game for Otago, ran a good angle off a scrum and waltzed over to score.
