Thirteen years on: Counties Manukau stun Northland to win the Ranfurly Shield

A wet afternoon in Whangārei, a team sitting near the foot of the table, and a 14-5 deficit at the break. Everything about Round 9 of the HILUX NPC pointed to Northland keeping the Ranfurly Shield they had waited nearly half a century to win back. Instead, Counties Manukau produced the upset of the season, storming home to win 22-19 with a penalty two minutes from time, and carried the Log o' Wood south for only the second time in their history.

For a proud union, that second part is the story. Counties Manukau have held the Ranfurly Shield exactly once before, in 2013-14, when a Tana Umaga-coached side won it off Hawke's Bay at McLean Park and defended it six times before handing it back to the same opponent. That is the whole of their Shield history: there was no earlier golden era, despite the club's famous names of the 1990s. This is their first tenure in more than a decade, and it was won by a team almost nobody fancied.

First contested in 1904, the Ranfurly Shield is New Zealand rugby's oldest domestic prize, here with a Wellington side that challenged for it in 1908. File photo. Photo: Alf Jones / Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Northland on top early

Northland, who had taken the Shield off Canterbury in Christchurch in August to end a 48-year drought of their own, looked every bit the holders in the first half. Centurion Sam Nock, celebrating 100 games for the Taniwha, opened the scoring inside five minutes, and James Ramm added a converted try on 32 minutes. With All Black Simon Parker prominent at number eight and the home scrum on top, Northland led 14-5 at halftime, Sione Molia's 21st-minute try the only reply from a Counties side struggling to hold the ball in the wet.

The comeback

Counties came out transformed. Gibson Popoali'i powered through several defenders on 54 minutes, AJ Alatimu converting, and the margin was suddenly a converted try. Blair Evans restored Northland's cushion on 62 minutes, but the try that changed the afternoon came from Counties fullback Adam Morrison, who first charged down a Rivez Reihana conversion attempt and then, on 68 minutes, went over himself to level the scores at 19-19. Alatimu's conversion tied it, and the visitors, so far behind for so long, could smell it.

The finish belonged to Alatimu. With two minutes left, referee Paul Williams, who kept his cards in his pocket all afternoon, penalised Northland, and captain Jimmy Tupou pointed to the posts. The first-five went through his routine, "line up the ball, count to four, and then kick and hope it goes over," as he put it afterwards, and it sailed through for the first Counties Manukau lead of the entire match. Northland could not respond. Final score, 22-19, and the Shield had changed hands.

A captain who has been here before

There was a lovely thread running through it. Tupou, the Counties captain, had played in that 2013 Shield-winning side, and scored a try in it. "It's extra special," he said. "The first time I was probably a little bit young and naive. To come back and be at the end part of my career, I'm just so proud of this group." For Northland captain Rivez Reihana, it was the flip side: "Our intention was to lock it up for the season. This one is going to sting for a while."

What comes next

There is a neat symmetry waiting. Counties won their first Shield off Hawke's Bay and lost it to Hawke's Bay, and their first defence of this one, in the final round on Saturday 3 October at Navigation Homes Stadium in Pukekohe, is against, of all teams, Hawke's Bay. Win that and a long-suffering South Auckland rugby public gets to keep the Log o' Wood on home soil through summer.

For Northland, the sting is real: two defences made, both won at home, and then a first home defeat to a team fighting for its NPC survival. For Counties Manukau, thirteen years of waiting ended in the rain up north, and a captain who was there the first time got to lift it again.