Moana Pasifika coach Tana Umaga has heralded his side’s strong purpose in helping them claim a stirring 21-19 upset victory over the finals-bound ACT Brumbies in potentially their final match.<\/p>\n
Moana Pasifika (2-12) relished in the emotionally charged occasion at GIO Stadium on Saturday and snapped a 12-game losing streak to avoid a record-equalling 13th loss.<\/p>\n
The cellar dwellers’ victory wasn’t smooth sailing, as the Brumbies led both on the scoreboard and numerically when barnstorming inside centre Faletoi Peni was handed a second yellow card and sent off in the 63rd minute.<\/p>\n
But the hosts couldn’t make the most of their opportunity and substitute Melani Matavao stormed over in the 73rd minute to claim victory.<\/p>\n
“With all that had happened during the week, in terms of Moana going into liquidation, we (knew we wouldn’t) see a lot of our group that we left behind,” Umaga said.<\/p>\n
“We talked a lot about our strong purpose of who we represent. We’re representing our culture, our people, and we saw that come through in the end.<\/p>\n
“(In all) the emotion of the last few months, today, I couldn’t tell you what happened in those other games … I can tell you what happened today, and I’m very proud of it. This one stands out.”<\/p>\n
The Brumbies (7-7) needed a big bonus-point win to help them move as high as fourth on the ladder, but instead will have to settle for sixth.<\/p>\n
Their faltering lineout and a series of errors will be a concern for coach Stephen Larkham as the Brumbies now face the table-topping Hurricanes across the Tasman in the qualifying finals, where they must win to secure a semis berth.<\/p>\n
“There’s a whole lot of frustration in the change room at the moment, there’s lots of guys thinking about what they could have done differently or better,” Larkham said.<\/p>\n
“For me right now it (my message is) get some good sleep, that’s the priority, fully recover from this game, and get your details right when we come back in.”<\/p>\n
The Brumbies came out firing, with Rory Scott planting the ball over the line before Tom Wright crossed in the 16th minute.<\/p>\n
But when veteran James Slipper was handed a yellow card, the visitors capitalised through Patrick Pellegrini before the flyhalf wrestled over for his second to tie the halftime score at 14-all.<\/p>\n
The Brumbies re-established the lead when they shifted left and found Luke Reimer in the corner before Peni was given his marching orders after a high tackle on Andy Muirhead.<\/p>\n
ACT’s newly re-signed Klayton Thorn thought he had scored, but a forward pass in the lead-up denied him a try, and Matavao got on the receiving end of some slick passing to steal victory.<\/p>\n
Moana Pasifika 21\u00a0(Tries:\u00a0Pellegrini 2, Matavao; Cons: Pellegrini 3)\u00a0def ACT Brumbies 19\u00a0(Tries:\u00a0Scott, Wright, Reimer; Cons: R. Lonergan 2)<\/p>\n
Teams:<\/p>\n
Moana Pasifika:\u00a015 William Havili, 14 Israel Leota, 13 Solomon Alaimalo, 12 Faletoi Peni, 11 Glen Vaihu, 10 Patrick Pellegrini, 9 Augustine Pulu, 8 Semisi Tupou Ta\u2019eiloa, 7 Semisi Paea, 6 Miracle Faiilagi (captain), 5 Veikoso Poloniati, 4 Allan Craig, 3 Atu Moli, 2 Millennium Sanerivi, 1 Malakai Hala-Ngatai.
\n\tReplacements:\u00a016 Mamoru Harada, 17 Abraham Pole, 18 Paula Latu, 19 Alefosio Aho, 20 Sam Tuitupou Ah-Hing, 21 Melani Matavao, 22 Tevita Latu, 23 Tuna Tuitama.<\/p>\n
Brumbies:\u00a015 Tom Wright, 14 Andy Muirhead, 13 Kadin Pritchard, 12 David Feliuai, 11 Corey Toole, 10 Declan Meredith, 9 Ryan Lonergan (captain), 8 Charlie Cale, 7 Rory Scott, 6 Rob Valetini, 4 Lachlan Shaw, 3 Allan Alaalatoa, 2 Billy Pollard, 1 James Slipper.
\n\tReplacements:\u00a016 Lachlan Lonergan, 17 Blake Schoupp, 18 Rhys van Nek, 19 Nick Frost, 20 Luke Reimer, 21 Klayton Thorn, 22 Tane Edmed, 23 Hudson Creighton.<\/p>\n
Referee:\u00a0Jordan Way
\n\tAssistant referees:\u00a0Damon Murphy, Jeremy Markey
\n\tTMO:\u00a0James Leckie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moana Pasifika coach Tana Umaga has heralded his side’s strong purpose in helping them claim a stirring 21-19…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-453099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453099","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=453099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}