Taniwha run riot: Northland 42, Taranaki 0

I was at Semenoff Stadium on Friday night, and honestly, the crowd had barely got comfortable before the Taniwha were over the line with the charge down try!

First minute. Not a figure of speech, the actual first minute. Lachie Hooper reads it, gets up into the kicker's space, charges it down, gathers and dots it down. Whangārei went up like a firework. You could feel the whole place lean forward, that little collective "oh, here we go."

And here we went.

A quick word on the jersey

I should declare myself here. I'm an Otago man. Grew up in Dunedin, live in Auckland now, and I was sitting in a Northland crowd wearing my Otago jersey, the same one I bought in 1995. That jersey has been to every Otago and Highlanders game I've been to since, including the 1998 NPC final at Carisbrook, the one Otago won 49-20 in front of 40,000 people, with Jamie Joseph in the pack. He's coaching now. I'm still wearing the jersey.

Which might make you ask who I was actually cheering for on Friday. Easy: Northland. Otago is my blood and always will be, but on the night I was up there backing the Taniwha, and by about the twenty-third minute I was making as much noise as anyone in the place. An Otago jersey in a Northland crowd, roaring for the home side. Rugby lets you do that.

A hat-trick before the half hour

Hooper wasn't finished. Around the quarter-hour he's at the back of a rolling maul that Taranaki simply couldn't hold, and he burrows over for his second. Eight minutes or so later he's got his third. A first-half hat-trick, for an openside, inside 23 minutes. You don't see that often at this level, and the bloke behind me had already started calling him "the charge-down king" by the time he crossed the third time.

Rivez Reihana knocked over all three conversions like it was a Tuesday training run, and that was the story of his night too. Six from six off the tee, from wherever you like, in that cold Northland air where the ball goes nowhere it isn't kicked properly. 21-0 at the break, and it honestly felt further.

Where the game was actually won

The set piece is where this was won. Photo: Northland Rugby

Here's the bit that doesn't show up in the highlights reel: this was won up front, and it was won territorially.

Taranaki got into Northland's 22 three times all night. Three. Northland went into theirs sixteen times. That is not a game of rugby so much as a one-way street, and it came from the set piece. Every time the visitors tried to build a bit of momentum, a scrum would tilt or a lineout would drift, the whistle would go, and the Taniwha would march them back downfield again. By the last ten minutes Northland were sitting on about seventy percent of the ball, which at that point is less a contest than a slow squeeze.

The tight five did the quiet, horrible work all night. Esile Fono, James Mullan and Marcel Renata got a proper platform going, Josh Goodhue and Allan Craig were everywhere in the lineout, and Terrell Peita carried like a man who'd been told the ball was his and he wasn't giving it back. Sam Nock at halfback kept the tempo exactly where Northland wanted it.

The second half: no let-up

Plenty of sides get a 21-0 lead and quietly take the foot off. This lot didn't, and that's probably the most encouraging thing about the whole night if you're a Northland person.

Mullan got his reward just before the hour, the hooker finishing off the sort of close-range work he'd been doing thanklessly for fifty-seven minutes. Reihana then treated himself on 65, which felt fair enough given he'd been kicking the lights out all evening. Bradley Tocker went to the bin for Taranaki late on, and Grady Forbes came off the bench to put the lid on it with three minutes to go. Reihana, inevitably, added the sixth conversion.

Six tries, six conversions, and not a single point for the visitors.

Two bits of history

Photo: Northland Rugby

That last part is the one that will stick around Whangārei for a while.

Taranaki have been coming to Northland for a very long time, and they had never once been kept scoreless by the Taniwha. Friday was the first. Ever. It also nudged past Northland's old record win over them, the 40-11 from back in 1987, which a few of the more senior voices in the stand were very quick to remind everyone about at full time.

Fair's fair, though

I've got a lot of time for Taranaki, and it's only right to say they arrived in a bad way.

They'd been beaten 38-32 by Waikato in New Plymouth the week before in a proper arm-wrestle, and they came north missing serious people. Captain Kaylum Boshier and vice-captain Logan Crowley were both out with concussion, midfielder Meihana Grindlay was suspended, and coach Jarrad Hoeata had to make five changes to his starting side. Take the captain, the vice-captain and a midfielder out of any team in this competition and ask them to front up on the road on a Friday night, and you'll see something similar.

That takes nothing from Northland. You can only beat what turns up, and the Taniwha beat it about as thoroughly as it can be beaten.

So where does that leave them

Early days. It's round three of a long NPC and one big night doesn't win you anything, as every Northland supporter over the age of about twelve will tell you without being asked.

But there are things in that performance to build on. A pack that dominated the set piece. A first-five in Reihana who is controlling games and kicking at a hundred percent. A loose forward in Hooper who is a genuine nuisance around the ball. And a side that kept playing at 21-0, and again at 28-0, and again at 35-0.

I walked out into the cold grinning, Otago jersey and all. Whangārei was in a very good mood, and so was I. Taniwha weather.

Onto the next one.