The Spirit beat the Wellington Pride 51-38 in one of the great Farah Palmer Cup games at Jerry Collins Stadium in Porirua today.
Most expected Wellington to dominate the championship semifinal — fair, as they had thumped Otago 51-13 the previous weekend.
But Otago tore up the form book, coming from 11 points down with a quarter to play and absolutely steam-rolling their bigger opponents to book a place in the final.
There were class acts all over the field, too.
Zoe Frood was an immense presence in the lineout and the loose, fellow flanker Bella Rewiri-Wharerau was hungry for work and scored two tries, and young hooker Hannah Lithgow was into everything.
Experienced first five Sheree Hume snaffled a couple of huge turnovers, fullback Lucy Hall looked dangerous, and Georgia Cormick was, as usual, full of hustle and efficiency at halfback.
The story of the game, though, was 17-year-old centre Va’afusuaga.
Her jersey had no number on the back but its occupant ensured her name was in the spotlight with a wonderful display of power and creativity that must have Super Rugby Aupiki teams on notice.
It all looked a bit grim early for the Spirit as Wellington used their size advantage to jump to a 14-3 lead.
The Spirit seemed completely unbothered and responded with two quick tries.
When Wellington fought back with two worryingly easy tries in the space of three minutes, the game seemed to have turned again, but a Hall try following a devastating break from Va’afusuaga put the game in the balance at 26-20 to the Pride at halftime.
Otago scored first in the second half but, again, seemed to lose control of the game when Wellington winger Shakira Baker scored her second and third tries to make it 38-27 to the Pride.
What followed were arguably the best 23 minutes in the recent history of the Otago Spirit.
They were simply relentless.
Bench front-rowers Isla Pringla and Leila Hill came on and combined for a try, Cheyenne Cunningham made a powerful break and offloaded for Tegan Hollows to score, and a rattled Wellington lost a player to the bin.
Hume scored the Spirit’s seventh try before Rewiri-Wharerau capped a great day out with a score in the final minute.
"That feels very, very good," beaming Spirit captain Julia Gorinski told Sky Sport after the game.
"I’m a little bit speechless. But I’m bloody ecstatic, to be fair.
"We knew we could do it. The scoreline last week probably didn’t reflect that, but we knew we just had a few things to identify and fix, and we did that."
Gorinski said Otago’s defence was "pretty average" in the earlier game against Wellington.
"We had to really come up here and want it. I’m stoked."
Otago will now play Manawatū in the Farah Palmer Cup championship final on Sunday — and the Spirit might need to lift their efforts even further.
Manawatū, who won all five round robin games with a record of 274 points for and just 60 against, destroyed North Harbour 72-0 in Saturday’s semifinal.
The Cyclones were upset by Northland in the championship final last year but will be hot favourites to earn promotion.
Flying winger Kaia Walker-Waitoa scored four tries for Manawatū in the semifinal.
The premiership division has one more round to go before their semifinals.
FPC semifinal
The scores
Otago Spirit 51
Bella Rewiri-Wharerau 2, Charlotte Va’afusuaga, Lucy Hall, Julia Gorinski, Leila Hill, Tegan Hollows, Sheree Hume tries; Georgia Cormick 4 con, pen.
Wellington Pride 38
Shakira Baker 3, Alicia Print, Lavinia Lea, Milly Mackey tries; Arene Landon-Lane 4 con.
Halftime: Wellington 26-20.
