@snollygoster said in Hawkes v Bay of Plenty - Shield Match!:

Its still a pretty handy team given that two ex All Blacks can come on as reserves.

I'm hoping that one of those ex ABs comes on early ... unless of course Vella is worse at lineouts than him?

Would Garland even be a starter if he was available?

A bit surreal. First Shield challenge in years, but no plotting of road trips and no home crowd either.

Nevertheless, it’s underway!

Good start by the bay

Found an overlap relatively easily after a few composed phases

Looked like move right out of training ground book

Visinia is such a frustrating player. Sometimes he looks world class but then makes basic errors

How bad is the commentary - have twice called a player as McClutchie when it was Ili, and once when it was Visinia

Class from Selby-Rickit

Crazy HB hit back ,and now BOP with another training ground move ..gonna be one of these games

Beauuuuuutiful set piece

@steven-harris said in Hawkes v Bay of Plenty - Shield Match!:

..gonna be one of these games

And sure enough, now about to be 14 - 12.

@donsteppa hold on to your seat ,Try to new Moana pacifika loose forward Funaki..

Punting practice was something we don’t seem to have done a lot of during Level 4 & 3…

Tough call against the Magpies..thought the player was clearly isolated

How good from Ratave!

@donsteppa like a ball of muscle ..

Like a hot butter through knife

That was weak defence.

Who do you reckon has the wind ..?

Magpies having a dominant period of play for the last few minutes or so.

I think this game is gonna come down to the team with most petrol in the tank after lockdown