As expected, Otago Boys' High School and Southland Boys' High School have made it through to the final of the Highlanders First XV competition.
Perennial heavyweight Otago Boys' brushed aside King's High School 37-0 at Littlebourne on Saturday, and Southland Boys' produced a rusty display but was still too good for Dunstan High School, winning 57-14 in Invercargill.
The tournament is in its fifth year and has had only two winners. Southland Boys' won it the first two years and Otago Boys' has dominated the past two seasons.
When the teams met earlier this year, Otago Boys' had a narrow 12-10 win in Invercargill. It will have home advantage for the final, which, conditions willing, is expected to be held at Littlebourne.
The winner will play Marlborough Boys' College in the South Island final. At stake is the place in the national First XV semifinals. The Highlanders representative will have the advantage of playing the South Island final on home territory.
Southland Boys' coach Marty Smith was not overly thrilled with his side's win over Dunstan. It led 31-0 at halftime but he described the performance as ''messy''.
''We didn't play that well, to tell the truth,'' Smith said.
''We haven't had a game for a couple of weeks and it showed. We made a lot of fundamental errors. We dropped the ball and we didn't look like we had any structure. But, to our credit, we put some good tries together.''
Prop Shaun Stodart had a strong match and lock Jake Stewart was dominant.
Dunstan scored two tries in the second half, as second five-eighth Sam Galletly and centre Canaan Napier dotted down. Lock Will Meehan and Cody Lainge had standout performances for Dunstan.
Otago Boys' coach Ryan Martin was more satisfied with his side's performance.
''We dominated the rucks, really, and that gave us good front-foot ball,'' Martin said.
''Our lineout drives and mauls were really effective. We scored a couple of good tries off those. It is something we work hard on.''
Openside flanker Jamie Mowat scored two tries and got through a big workload, and blindside flanker Matt Heffernan was also impressive. He ran 45m to score a wonderful solo try.
Jonah Aoina, Hemaua Samasoni and Jermaine Ainsley also scored tries.
