Auckland v Taranaki

[taniwharugby]

Huge 2nd half by Auckland, used the wind and thier forwards smoked 'naki.

@kev and yet RTS gets full 80...so far this week only AB to do so?

[Stargazer]

Good resilience shown by Aucks in this game. I think the weather had a great impact on this game, too.
Taranaki, a performance typical for their season. Good in flashes, but otherwise pretty average. Not sure what happened to them since last year.

[Duluth]

Auckland continue their pattern of playing 30-40mins of good rugby at most.

That was a hell of a second half though considering the injuries, the scoreboard and the weather.

I hope Choat is good and we finally see a Choat/Ekuasi/Peita trio with Gibson on the bench in the QF. However, the chances of Alama picking that are almost nil

[Bovidae]

The Taranaki reserve props have been very average all year. Their scrum goes from stable/dominant to back-pedalling.

[KiwiMurph]

Talk about a game of two halves.

Peita making a mockery of the coaches. How can you go a whole season playing two 7s while Peita a player much better suited to 6 just gets bugger all game time.

Good signs from young Fusita at prop in the second half.

Good to see RTS at 14 - tough game to tell but the odd time he had space he looked better.

Lam continues to show his class.

Would be tipping Harbour next week in the quarter.

[Dan54]

@Crucial said in Auckland v Taranaki:

@kev said in Auckland v Taranaki:

@Crucial said in Auckland v Taranaki:

@taniwharugby said in Auckland v Taranaki:

was wondering earlier why Northland had to move thier game v Manawatu from Okara (due to womens RWC) yet Auckland are allowed to stay at EP?

It will be a turf assessment I guess.
EP is being hammered recently though.
Three games last week, this, and three next week.
Fair enough to ask I guess. What’s Okara like turf wise?

Drainage has been good but couldn’t say about the turf itself.

It’s quite a science these days. Drainage and a bit of seed doesn’t cut it compared to the top stadia.
That big sports training centre is being built not far from us and they scraped the old grounds down a good metre or more to rebuild them with a sand and soil mix. Was quite impressive the amount of earth moving.

Yep Yarrow park in New Plymouth now got a mixture of artificial and real grass, see every outdoor stadium like that in a few years.

[Dan54]

And I guess that's my Naki team done for the year, been ok following them, guess I need to get behind someone else for a couple of games.

[Duluth]

[African Monkey]

@Duluth said in Auckland v Taranaki:

Parete lucky there’s not a better angle of that

Just watching the game now. What an absolute grub.

[Daffy Jaffy]

A full replay in case you missed it -