Third-placed Alexandra will host fourth-placed Cromwell at Molyneux Park, fifth-placed Maniototo will take on bottom-placed Matakanui Combined (the only team that cannot qualify for the play-offs) at Omakau and sixth-placed Arrowtown will tackle competition leaders Upper Clutha at Jack Reid Park in the "Matariki Special" this afternoon — a rare Friday encounter.
To feature in the semifinals, Arrowtown need a couple of miracles to happen. First, they must beat Upper Clutha, a team they lost to 50-0 back in early May, and then knock over Maniototo in their final qualifying match, also at home.
Saturday’s most intriguing clash is between Alexandra and Cromwell.
The first thing Alexandra coach Lee Wilson is praying for is for the fog which has blanketed the town for most of the week to roll away.
"The inversion layer was upon us from Monday to Wednesday, so we’re hoping for brighter things come Saturday," he said.
When these two teams met back in early May, Cromwell won 26-5, but defending champions Alexandra have improved significantly since then and, most importantly, have their Irish lock, Joshua Young, back from a serious knee injury.
Coach Wilson knows that a victory will cement his team’s standing in the top four.
"We don’t want to have to rely on other contests going our way," he said.
"Win on Saturday and we’re secure."
Maniototo coach Ken Willis shares Wilson’s philosophy.
"We must win at Omakau to stay in the running."
Willis is frustrated that his team in recent times has lost two contests it could so easily have won, going down by one point to Cromwell and two points to Alexandra.
"We’ve got to learn to shut teams out when we’re ahead."
Maniototo beat Matakanui Combined 35-26 in the first round and has home advantage on Saturday.
"They’ve been scoring plenty of tries and extending opponents — we’ll need to be on our game for 80 minutes.
Arrowtown were devastated losing to Cromwell after scoring seven tries last weekend in an astonishing contest that produced 14 tries and 90 points.
With home advantage they should be competitive today, but Upper Clutha represent a formidable opponent.
Upper Clutha have won nine of their 10 games, averaging 36 points and five tries per game. Brady Kingan, with 111 points, is the competition’s leading tryscorer and Tomas Jarman, with nine, the top tryscorer.
- Bob Howitt
