Northland v North Harbour
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@Dice Yeah - their best chance is to edge out Wellington, but they need a big favour from Hawkes Bay because Wellington is pretty sure to pick up 5 points vs Manawatu.
And, if they end up tied on the same number of points as Wellington then they dip out - unless there's a third team stuck there.
They should have been a top 4 team, but they probably won't be.
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@Dice said in Northland v North Harbour:
Harbour won't be too happy with just 4 points from this game.
They're still a chance for a playoff spot, but it's slim. They probably have to win their last two games with a bonus point to have a chance.
Completely unlikely but such is the strange nature of the comp this year they could still be relegated depending on other results. Weird year.
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I wont go into what I thought of the ref and his errors, inconsistent and baffling decisions...
Again, we put too much pressure on ourselves with errors, always at the wrong time too, although we probably still made less errors than last week!
But jeez we struggle to score, if we arent throwing 50-50 passes we are losing control.
Great touches off the boot by Wright early on, good outing by him, our mid-field looked solid, I like the look of Cooper though, just looks to have time, Rush was a standout for me, excellent debut start!
Forwards were a mixed bag, our scrum was under the pump (legally or not...) in that first spell, but was shored up in the 2nd...our maul defence has vanished the last 2 weeks.
The usual suspects stood up again.
Both tackled in the air incidents happened on the opposite side to us, but for me the only difference between the 2 was the landing.
Assuming Gregory doesnt cop a ban, I think we start the same backline, maybe only swap Ranger with Leilua who seems to have gone off the boil.
Next week is about physicality, too often when we play Auckland we let them bully us.
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@taniwharugby yeah Auckland always bully us. I think Gregory will spend time on the sidelines. It’s so hard on all players. You contest at risk. In this case NH player leapt towards ball, Gregory realised at last moment he was going to be second, so stopped and that was the worst option because he ended up under the player.
Really the Refs need to be better at scrum time. I though NH won the first two then just started boring in. Northland should seek clarification from refs on this because you can’t let a game go like this and not manage it on the field. Basically a key set piece was taken away from us because we lost the ref. It cost us the first half. We cost ourselves the second.
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@taniwharugby said in Northland v North Harbour:
Assuming Gregory doesnt cop a ban, I think we start the same backline, maybe only swap Ranger with Leilua who seems to have gone off the boil.
100% though I might use Macalai instead of Ranger. Prefer Rene closer to action. If Gregory is not available he starts.
