Taranaki v Northland
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One thing I’m glad about is that I did’nt do a 9 hour round trip drive down to the Naki
Nock and Reihana could not have been poorer if they tried
The only real bright spot was the scrum up against a Chiefs front row and a couple of individual performances
Corey Evans I thought tried his best as did Llachan Hooper who looks a bloody good player for a 21 year old plays very much like his brother Tom
Physical and has great leg drive , he was mentioned to both the Blues and the Highlanders when he was signed to Northland
Be a good pick up for the Landers but I reckon the Crusaders will be all over this
Well done to the Naki , only one way to go from here -
Loved that game. Taranaki boys never really looked to be in trouble. By geez JRK certainly knows how to accelerate into a gap. But wasn't alone in the Naki boys to do it. And to top i9t all off, I was at game, got to car, and home to Hawera , walked in door, turned on tv and the countdown was at 3-2-1 for kick off to Wallabies/Lions test. Though it feels a bit empty it being a dead rubber now.
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That was disappointing but not unexpected.
We needed our big players to step up, and sadly, Nock and Reihana were poor, ourside them Pasitoa missed a couple of crucial tackles that gave naki huge metres.
As with @Steven-Harris I thought Hooper was excellent, Parker looked good for 40 despite his lack of game time, Heenan went well, well the pack as a whole was good, aside from our poor lineout I the 3rd quarter in particular.
The bench forwards added some spark, but we overall just far too inaccurate on both sides of the ball, although for the most part, our scramble d was good.
Evans and Trainor were both looked good running the ball back, but we failed to fire a shot, very disappointing, which is just another disappointing shield challenge from us.
