Table:

Pos. Team P W B PTS
1 Hawke’s Bay 5 5 5 25
2 Wellington 4 4 4 20
3 Tasman 4 4 3 19
4 BoP 5 3 5 17
5 Waikato 5 3 4 16
6 Taranaki 4 3 3 15
7 Southland 4 2 2 10
8 Otago 4 2 2 10
9 Canterbury 5 2 2 10
10 North Harbour 4 1 5 9
11 Northland 5 1 3 7
12 Counties-Manukau 5 1 3 7
13 Auckland 4 0 2 2
14 Manawatū 4 0 2 2

Fixtures: Friday 06/09: BoP v Manawatū

Saturday 07/09: Auckland v North Harbour Wellington v Southland Otago v Canterbury Hawke’s Bay v Tasman (Ranfurly Shield)

Sunday 08/09: Taranaki v Waikato Counties-Manukau v Northland

Wednesday 11/09: Otago v Wellington

Notes: The biggest game this round is the Ranfurly Shield match on Saturday night, Tasman have never one it as the combined union of Marlborough/Nelson Bays so they’ll be up for it; and of course Hawke’s Bay will be desperate to keep their winning record. Whoever wins gets both the log o’ wood and top of the table.

Other than that, there’s a couple of other usually fierce derbies. The Battle of the Bridge on Satuurday, then Otago v Canterbury. Most of the rest of the matches aren’t especially exciting.

My Predictions: BoP 24+ North Harbour 9- Wellington 18+ Otago 3- Hawke’s Bay 3- Taranaki 9+ Northland 9- Wellington 6+

  • TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nzOP
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    9 days ago
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    Well the Hawke’s Bay v Tasman game lived up to the billing, hell of a match. Hawke’s Bay had it won by scoring a late try and then Toala kicking an incredible side line conversion. Only to inexplicably try to take it back to 2010 and grind out ruck after ruck with 3 minutes to play around the halfway line.

    They needed to get a kick into the Tasman 22m and force them to try to run it back, but instead the inevitable happened and they gave up a stupid holding on penalty at 48m, which the Tasman replacement pivot kicked with metres to spare to take the shield off us.

    Absolutely gutted.