Auckland flurry too much for Otago

Auckland staged a brilliant fightback, scoring two tries in the last two minutes, to win their final match of the 2004 Air New Zealand NPC season, when they beat Otago 35-33 at Eden Park in Auckland on Friday.

The winning try was scored by replacement winger Joe Rokocoko in the 80th minute, with Brad Mika driving over from a line-out in the 79th minute as Auckland came back from 33-25 down to win.

The Auckland comeback came after Otago themselves had turned around from trailing 25-19, to take a 33-25 lead in the 75th minute.

It appeared that Otago would end their miserable season on a high note, but the real drama was yet to come.

It started when Carlos Spencer was brilliantly put through a gap by David Gibson, who off-loaded to Doug Howlett -  who in turn attempted a kick ahead that was taken into touch by Glen Horton. From the line-out the Auckland forwards drove well and Brad Mika went over. Orene Ai'i attempted a drop the conversion, but it went wide.

Auckland regained possession from the restart and after breaks by Spencer and Howlett, the ball was given to Tasesa Lavea, who put Rokocoko through a huge gap to outsprint the defence and score under the posts.

Auckland gave prop Kees Meeuws a ceremonial conversion, but he missed.

However, Auckland had once again denied Otago a win with a last minute comeback.

The scorers:

For Auckland:
Tries: MacDonald, Howlett 2, Ward, Mika, Rokocoko
Con: Ward
Pen: Ward

For Otago:
Tries: Shoemark, Harding, Smith
Cons: Webb 3
Pens: Webb 4