I like moving Peita to 7, in club season I thought he (or Rory Woods) could be best suited to 7 when you look at finding the best balanced loose trio when you assume fit, Rush & Parker as the other 2 loosies, Peita no doubt adds a lineout option too.

Very surprised Salmon has been dropped out of the 23 and Rush straight in, sure Salmon made a couple of errors the other night, but he has a bit of x-factor about him, Brady Rush on the other hand, hasnt really done much in his numerous chances at this level so far, and can be very error prone too, so we shall see...I'd have given Milo-Harris a start too.

Great to see Bodene Davis get a run, rewarded after a top season for Moerewa / United KawaKawa, not the biggest lock, but has an engine and good pace too.

@taniwharugby I thought Salmon was excellent. Very unlucky. We need the energy we had against Canterbury which apart from 5 maul tries was a good game for us. Will be making the trip up. Hopefully for a win

@kev it was more a silly kick he tried and he needlessly came off his wing and they scored where he should have been...but then trainor was caught out twice from kick-passes when he was too far in, so Salmon wasn't the only one.

But Salmon was the spark for Nocks try and is strong in contact with great acceleration, certainly seems harsh to drop him completely.

Kicking off now

I guess MacLeod doesn’t rate the Southland back three. Lots of kicking and asking them to make decisions

Caird with the first try

Yawn

That's better, what a kick a thon

With some better passes Trainor would’ve scored unmarked. Moulds gets over anyway

19-7 Northland 37mins

That was better

Great try, 26-7 half time

Mitch Dunshea making a play for the vacant Landers 10 jersey throwing an outstanding inside ball for the winger to run on to

Northland needs to calm down, games not won yet

Most certainly not won, 26-21

26 all, conversion to come. Dumb shit 50-50 plays are killing Northland

Nope dropped it

Northland looking tired

Cmon Stags... i had written them off at half time... bloody good game.. have enjoyed

Hard too believe reihana is a SR ten, kicking away possession like that

Bryon Smith beauty of a cross kick

Game of two halves.

@Machpants said in Northland v Southland:

Hard too believe reihana is a SR ten, kicking away possession like that

I don’t think Northland get enough out of Evans when he’s at 13. He needs to touch the ball more. He covered 10 for the Blues a few times this year.. I think he could be a better option than RR

Just loving this ... cmon Stags!

Why would Reihana not pass there with a massive overlap?

Well done Southland awesome victory

Yeeeeess well done boys!!!!!!

Second half was 24-0

Amazing comeback. Almost as if another team came out of the shed.

Stags can thank their reserve scrumhalf whose kicking seemed to inspire the rest of them.

Tanisha looked shocked.

2 weeks in a row we had a shitnshow of a 2nd half.

@Duluth Evans needs to let the ball go, holds onto it too much, we could have scored more on his outside had he let it go

Great comeback from the stags. I chucked a dirty multi on with an $9 shot horse and the stags when they were paying $8.5. Paying $800. The horse lost by half a norse. That's punting though! On the stags, great to see Withy, Byron Smith, Dunshea and Jack Taylor playing great footy

mentally f'n feeble
wonder if they can recover from that
i doubt it
loser mentality will be ingrained deep into this squad now

@mohikamo lets hope not, if they keep playing the way they played in the first 40 they'll do well. I would prefer Lisati to start over Nock, he seems to slow down the momentum at ruck

@Nzrugbyfan said in Northland v Southland:

@mohikamo lets hope not, if they keep playing the way they played in the first 40 they'll do well. I would prefer Lisati to start over Nock, he seems to slow down the momentum at ruck

Milo-Harris and Evans played 9 & 10 a couple of times for Grammar TEC this year

I could go on about that 2nd half or look at the good from the first half, but I honestly can't, taking snatching defeat from the jaws of victory to a whole new level.

That was soul destroying.

@Machpants Nah give the bloke a break, we only remember the bad games but he had an absolute shiner against Manawatu.

Our forwards seemed exhausted 10 mins into the second half

Enjoyed the game. I had Taniwha in my picks etc, and was feeling completely neutral. Then I started to feel for Southland in first half, getting whipped, so started to cheer fot them. Bugger me didn't know my support was so essential! Genuinely both stoked for Southland fans, and feel for Northland ones at same time.
I will say again, I think Jamie Joseph must be quite pleased with what he seeing from some of these young fellas from Southland and Otago!