Otago consolidated their spot in second place with a tense 28-26 win against Taranaki at Forsyth Barr Stadium this afternoon.<\/p>\n
A crowd of 2178 fell a little silent when the home side conceded two quick tries and trailed 26-14 midway through the second half.<\/p>\n
But men in blue hustled.<\/p>\n
There is no other way to describe it.<\/p>\n
Wiry first five Cameron Millar got the ball down when he had absolutely no right.<\/p>\n
That closed the gap, and Otago charged the ball down twice as they turned the blowtorch on the visitors.<\/p>\n
Liam Coltman got over from a lineout drive, and from there they were able to win the clock down.<\/p>\n
They needed some luck, though. Taranaki first five Josh Jacomb missed a handy penalty which would have put his side in front with five minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
The win has firmed up Otago\u2019s claim on a home playoff spot.<\/p>\n
Earlier, fullback Sam Nemec-Vial made a mixed start. He ran the ball back out of his 22 nicely, but moments later failed to collect an attacking kick.<\/p>\n
Otago scrambled out of trouble, but it was a hairy moment close to the line.<\/p>\n
Livewire halfback Dylan Pledger created the first try. He went for a dart down a narrow blindside and linked up with Jae Broomfield.<\/p>\n
The winger was away had it not been for an ankle tap. But Otago recycled quickly and midfielder Josh Timu crashed over in the tackle several phases later.<\/p>\n
Taranaki responded quickly. They launched a lineout drive from 10m out.<\/p>\n
Otago repelled the drive, but halfback Logan Crowley nipped through a gap and hooker Bradley Slater barged over.<\/p>\n
The home set up camp down the other end for a long stretch but could not find a crack in the defence.<\/p>\n
When Taranaki got an opportunity, they went all-in on a rolling maul. There was barely anyone left in the back line when the ball eventually emerged.<\/p>\n
Otago wriggled off the hook, but Taranaki remained on the offensive and eventually worked the ball out to the right flank.<\/p>\n
Replacement back Obey Samate collected a slick offload from Adam Lennox and finished off in the corner.<\/p>\n
Otago recaptured the lead just before the break. Nemec-Vial speared a nice pass to talisman winger Jona Nareki, who went in untouched and ran around closer to the posts to help out Millar with the conversion.<\/p>\n
Both sides threatened from broken play in the early exchanges in the second half.<\/p>\n
But Taranaki pounced on a rare error from Christian Lio-Willie.<\/p>\n
He fumbled a goal-line drop out and Taranaki got attacking ball in the middle of the field.<\/p>\n
The Bulls launched down the right wing. Otago looked to have won the ball back but Taranaki blew over the ruck and Kaylum Boshier sold a dummy and strolled in to score.<\/p>\n
Otago were back huddled together in the in-goal area minutes later.<\/p>\n
Replacement forward Arese Poliko barged over from close range.<\/p>\n
Midway through the half, they found themselves trailing by 12 and needed to respond.<\/p>\n
Will Stodart had a dip at the line and got close, but Millar got there from the next phase.<\/p>\n
He got stopped. But a couple of his teammates drove him over and he got it down somehow.<\/p>\n
The match was back in the balance.<\/p>\n
Otago charged down two clearance kicks in a row and looked to be heading for a try until Michael Loft got in the way of the pass from an offside position and got a trip to the bin.<\/p>\n
Otago set up a lineout drive and Coltman scored to give a slim lead.<\/p>\n
They fumbled the restart, though, and Taranaki won a scrum penalty.<\/p>\n
But Jacomb hooked it to the left of the upright and Otago escaped with the win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Otago consolidated their spot in second place with a tense 28-26 win against Taranaki at Forsyth Barr Stadium…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-20597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}