In the premier competition top qualifiers Star will play Woodlands on Les George Oval at noon tomorrow.
Star are the favourites after dominating the round-robin phase of the competition and finishing it in style when beating Pirates Old Boys 62-8 last week.
Star have comfortably beat Woodlands twice already this season but they will strike a stronger Woodlands team this time around.
Woodlands rolled out a strong squad to beat Blues 49-19 last week and the week prior they beat Pirates Old Boys 35-33.
Woodlands have their Stags props in Joe Walsh and Paula Latu lining up plus experienced former Stags Jason Rutledge at hooker and halfback Liam Howley.
Star have their own representative players in prop Jack Sexton, lock Josh Bekhuis and No 8 Semisi Tupou Ta’aeiloa. Jordan Stewart and Jayden and Nick Henderson are also in good form. Centre Johnny Vaili and fullback Cole Spinks get another chance to prove they belong in the NPC squad.
The second semifinal is also at Oreti Park at noon tomorrow between Pirates Old Boys and Eastern Northern Barbarians.
This is a replay of last year’s final, but this year Old Boys are without two high-quality players: midfielder Isaac Te Temaki and first five-eighth Kaea Nikora-Balloch.
These two sides have played each other three times this season and the biggest winning margin is three. Pirates Old Boys have won two and lost one
Greg Dyer has been doing a good job of steering the team around the park this season but he was unavailable last week when his team was routed by Star. Although Pirates had a bad run of injuries during the game, this was still a concerning performance ahead of the finals.
The Barbarians are at full strength and look to be a good chance of beating the defending champions. The Barbarians beat Marist 45-5 last week and beat Star 36-32 the week before.
Barbarians tight forwards Morgan Mitchell and Woody Kirkwood have been two of the competition’s best. Loose forwards Leroy Ferguson, Jacob Coghlan and Caine Taylor are fresh and fit for the business end of the season.
Marist coach Derek Manson is predicting a Star-Barbarians final, while Blues coach Fili Tagicakibau likes the look of Woodlands.
"They’ve been building nicely for the finals and have done it all before."
In the women’s competition Albion will host Blues in one semifinal tomorrow and Star will play Wakatipu in the other at Oreti Park.
- By John Langford
