The stand-in Southern captain had a lot to be happy about.
He had just led Southern to back-to-back titles with a 30-20 win over Dunedin at a boggy Bathgate Park on Saturday.
Einarsson put in a gutsy shift up front. He was a reliable source of lineout ball and led the battle against a formidable Dunedin pack.
"The boys really showed up and dug deep," he said shortly after the final whistle.
"It is a credit to them and the heart that we have in this team. It is just unreal."
Southern had a dream opening 20 minutes.
Fullback Mackenzie Haugh scored a try and set up another two.
But Dunedin hit back with a couple of tries. The second was a pushover from a 5m scrum right on halftime.
The Sharks had closed the gap to 17-15 and had the momentum.
"We needed to go back to our structure and not get too flustered by what had been happening," Einarsson said.
"That is really what we did.
"We just executed well and sort of slowed the game down a bit and played our pace."
From the "only in Dunedin" files came a cute story of a couple of Sharks supporters.
Flatmates Liam Trainor and Adam Hewson wanted to make sure they had the prime seats for the final.
So, about 90 minutes before kick off, they tossed a two-seater couch on to the back on the ute, drove it over to Bathgate Park, and humped it across the paddock until they found the spot they were looking for.
Sadly for the two young men, it was located close to where massive prop Mike Mata’afa got a lovely inside ball to Paul Tupa’i, who scored to seal victory for Southern.
- The Dunedin Mako won their fifth successive premier colts banner when they beat Kaikorai 29-28 at Kettle Park on Saturday.
They made really hard work of it as Kaikorai turned up to play.
Kaikorai had lost three finals in four years to the Mako and were making up for lost time.
They were down by a point with the clock winding down when they got a penalty in front and 30m out, and their kicker skewed it wide to hand the Mako victory.
Mako second five Charlie Dodds was the commanding presence in the game.
He made the most breaks and had a hand in most of Dunedin’s tries.
The Mako have the enviable record of being undefeated for more than two years. — additional reporting Paul Dwyer
