Lock it away, boys.<\/p>\n
Otago cruised to a 41-26 win against North Harbour in Dunedin this afternoon.<\/p>\n
The Ranfurly Shield might take a few more victory laps around the province in the next few weeks, but the Otago Rugby Association can essentially lock it up until next season.<\/p>\n
The team can now concentrate on winning the NPC, and there is a sentence that probably would not have been written at the start of August.<\/p>\n
Coach Mark Brown has helped transform a team of perennial underachievers into a legitimate title contender this season.<\/p>\n
The glorious 38-36 win against Canterbury last week confirmed that ability.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s clinical display against the winless North Harbour just added another layer of expectation.<\/p>\n
The biggest crowd of the season \u2014 some 5821 fans \u2014 were treated to a perfect start from Otago.<\/p>\n
Josh Timu put Sam Gilbert into a hole from a set piece move and halfback Dylan Pledger loomed up in support and scored between the sticks.<\/p>\n
North Harbour responded with a nice try in the corner and Mark Tele\u2019a picked off a pass from Pledger and ran 50m to score.<\/p>\n
Otago were rocked but rediscovered some composure.<\/p>\n
Powerhouse No 8 Christian Lio-Willie reached out to score from close range after lock Joseva Tamani had made a huge carry.<\/p>\n
And the crowd erupted when veteran hooker Liam Coltman, playing his 100th game for Otago, drove over from a lineout drive in the final act of the half.<\/p>\n
The 10m line was remarked as the 100m line in appreciation of Coltman\u2019s long service.<\/p>\n
Otago led 21-14 at the break and they dominated the opening exchanges in the second spell but could not find their way to the chalk.<\/p>\n
That was until the home team had a dart down the blindside and Jona Nareki got a cracking offload to Lucas Casey.<\/p>\n
The openside flanker dotted down for his seventh try of the season.<\/p>\n
Then somehow Pledger dived on a chip kick in time before it rolled dead in goal. The smart money was on the ball winning the race. Pledger beat the odds there.<\/p>\n
North Harbour kept battling, though, and Sofai Notoa-Tipo chased down a grubber and scored in the corner.<\/p>\n
Otago looked gassed and Harbour scored again. This time Tom Barham finished off an incredible try.<\/p>\n
The crowd could see that Otago needed a lift and cheered loudly as they made their way back to the halfway for the restart.<\/p>\n
Cameron Millar added two late penalties to seal the win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lock it away, boys. Otago cruised to a 41-26 win against North Harbour in Dunedin this afternoon. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-46527","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\/46527","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=46527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}