Taranaki beat Southland 24-10 in what was effectively a dress rehearsal for this weekend’s Championship semifinal between the teams.
The outcome in Inglewood yesterday was never going to have any impact on the final standings.
And the dead rubber was not particularly inspiring viewing.
The Stags made a strong start up front, though.
They opened the scoring in the sixth minute when No 8 Charles Alaimalo crashed over under the posts.
In the lead-up, hooker Greg Pleasants-Tate had carried hard and slipped a lovely offload to Joel Everson who was pulled down 8m short.
The Stags continued to keep the ball close to their pack and were dominating territory.
They lost Charles Alaimalo, who left the field with a shoulder injury after quarter of an hour.
But Greg Dyer extended the lead to 10-0 with a penalty.
Taranaki had been pinned in its own half for most of the opening 20 but went wide in a desperate bid to get into the game.
Southland held firm until Logan Crowley nipped through a gap, got the ball to Stephen Perofeta who got the pass away to unmarked winger Kini Naholo.
Perofeta drilled a penalty just before the break to level the scores 10-10.
He injected some much needed excitement 15 minutes into the second spell when he gathered a kick and cut through the defensive line.
Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens got in support and strolled 30m to score.
Moments later fellow winger Vereniki Tikoisolomone toed ahead a dropped pass, regathered and scored a 70m try.
The game had slipped away from the Stags with those two errors.
On Saturday, Canterbury and Tasman secured the final
two Premiership semifinal spots.
Canterbury leapfrogged Bay of Plenty in the standings with a 40-28 victory over the Bay in Christchurch, while Tasman did same to Wellington with a 34-22 win in Blenheim.
