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Otago stumble to victory

Thursday 21st August 2008

Grim display: Otago's Daniel Bowden maneuvers his way past a Steelers' defender

Otago secured their third win in four outings as they fumbled and bumbled their way to a 22-8 Air New Zealand Cup win over Counties Manukau in Auckland on Thursday.

In what was a very dour and disappointing contest, Otago's error-count let them down and they also failed to make the most of their chances.

While the visitors pocketed the four competition points, Counties Manukau would have derived some satisfaction from an improved performance.

A mediocre first half produced three tries to break the monotony of a series of handling errors from both teams.

The game never got going, with referee Josh Noonan regularly stopping play for infringements, some of them forced but most of them self-inflicted.

Counties Manukau scored first via flanker Fritz Lee, who burrowed his way over the tryline in the 16th minute after outside centre Niva Ta'auso was held up just short of the line.

Otago responded three minutes later when the home side failed to control a kick from fly-half Chris Noakes, which was latched on to by Aaron Bancroft, who flung out a long pass for his left wing Karne Hesketh to score in the corner.

Noakes, in devastating form with the boot, slotted the conversion from the sideline that also handed the visitors the lead.

Steelers' inside centre Dean Cummins put his side in front again with a handy penalty goal, after missing two from a very similar angle.

Counties were now up 8-7 after 23 minutes.

Woeful defence then gifted Otago full-back Glen Horton his team's second try in the 27th minute when he entered the line and brushed off three weak tackles to dot down.

Noakes hit the right-hand upright from wide out, just to prove he is indeed human.

Otago led 12-8 and that remained the score at half-time.

The second half turned into a kick-a-thon with both sides wary of making mistakes inside their own quarter.

Noakes then eased over a penalty seven minutes into the second spell to move Otago out to a 15-8 advantage which they were unable to build on until the 78th minute when lock Ross Kennedy scored their third try against a tiring defence.

Noakes duly converted to make the final score 22-8.

The scorers:

For Counties Manukau:
Try: Lee
Pen: Cummings

For Otago:
Tries: Hesketh, Horton, Kennedy
Cons: Noakes 2
Pen: Noakes

Counties Manukau: 15 Siale Piutau, 14 Lelia Masaga, 13 Niva Ta'auso, 12 Dean Cummins, 11 David Raikuna, 10 Tanner Vili, 9 Samisoni Fisilau, 8 Gary Saifoloi, 7 Fritz Lee, 6 DJ Forbes, 5 Andrew Van der Heijden (c), 4 Jamie Chipman, 3 Jayden Murch/Eugene Beneke, 2 Lance Po-ching, 1 Simon Lemalu.
Replacements: 16 Ilaisa Maasi, 17 Beneke/Rob Katu, 18 Rupeni Nasiga, 19 Viliami Fihaki, 20 Romi Ropati, 21 Kevin Farrell, 22 Sherwin Stowers.

Otago: 15 Glen Horton, 14 Lucky Mulipola, 13 Brett Mather, 12 Aaron Bancroft, 11 Karne Hesketh, 10 Chris Noakes, 9 Toby Morland, 8 Steven Setephano, 7 Craig Newby (c), 6 Seko Qaraniqio, 5 Tom Donnelly, 4 Ross Kennedy, 3 Ben Nolan, 2 Jason MacDonald, 1 Keith Cameron.
Replacements: 16 Peter Mirrielees, 17 Jed Vercoe/Sam Hibbard, 18 Paul Grant, 19 Eben Joubert, 20 Sean Romans, 21 Daniel Bowden, 22 Ben Smith.

Referee: Josh Noonan
Television match official: Matt Stanish