The last kick: 19-year-old Jimmy Taylor wins it for Southland

There are winning kicks, and then there are winning kicks from the sideline, after the hooter, at nineteen years old, to end your team's seven-match losing run.

Jimmy Taylor had that one on Sunday.

Southland beat Waikato 32-31 at Rugby Park in Invercargill, and the manner of it will be retold in the south for a while. Aukusitino Salanoa scored the try that brought the Stags within a single point. That left the conversion, out near the touchline, with the game already over and the whole thing resting on it.

Taylor kicked it.

The numbers behind the drama

Waikato scored five tries to Southland's four and still lost, which is the sort of arithmetic that keeps coaches awake. Southland's two penalty goals made the difference, along with three conversions from four, against Waikato's three from five.

It was tight all day. Southland led just 8-5 at halftime. Waikato's Taha Kemara scored a try and finished with nine points. In the grind, Waikato's Konrad Toleafoa made 25 tackles and Sean Withy 24 with two turnovers won, which tells you what sort of match it was even before the finish.

Southland had 43 per cent of possession and 47 per cent of territory. They won it anyway.

A word about the teenager

Southland coach Scott Eade was asked about Taylor afterwards, and his answer says as much about the team as the kicker.

"He is just mirroring our team in terms of getting better. He has only been here three weeks, but he has already settled in."

"I think the way Jimmy has grown in taking control in key moments, and starting to put us at the right end of the field, and his ability just to play what he sees. Then there is his goalkicking; he wants those moments, doesn't he."

He wants those moments. That is the whole thing about goalkickers, and you either have it at nineteen or you spend years learning it.

Eade also had time for hooker Jayden Henderson: "He ripped in, and there was probably a stage in the first half where he was probably a bit buggered, but he was going really well for us, especially around his throwing and just his work rate around the field."

What it means

This was Southland's first win of 2026, and it snapped a seven-match NPC losing streak stretching back into last season. They climb to tenth. Waikato drop to fifth but take a try bonus and a losing bonus out of it, so the damage on the ladder is limited. The damage to the mood on the bus home is another matter.

For Southland, the value of a win like this is not the two competition points. It is that a young side found out it could close a game out. That tends to stick.