Counties trounce fumbling Makos

Story by: WAYNE MARTIN - Nelson Mail - Photo by: by Evan Barnes

It was Taranaki all over again.

The Tasman Makos had hoped their error-ridden second-round loss four weeks ago in New Plymouth had been kicked to touch, never to be seen again – at least this season.

But the mistakes and the handling errors came flooding back to haunt them last night at a wet Bayer Growers Stadium in Pukekohe as Counties Manukau eased to a comfortable 23-3 ITM Cup rugby win.

Tasman barely looked like scoring a try while conceding two to a much more clinical Counties side obviously smarting from last week's meek capitulation to Waikato in Hamilton.

Their win moved Counties back up into temporary occupation of second spot in the standings, on 19 points alongside Wellington, with the rest of the round still to come.

Winger Ahsee Tuala picked up his sixth try of the season when he crossed for Counties' first of the night after 22 minutes.

Fellow winger Sherwin Stowers then exploited the wet conditions to slide across in several tackles 12 minutes after the restart, following a clean line break by substitute halfback Samisoni Fisilau, to further illustrate Counties' superior execution.

Stowers was a constant threat, the New Zealand sevens representative regularly using his express pace to taunt Tasman's defence. He also spectacularly chased down Tasman winger Blair Cook after Cook had fielded an attacking cross kick by first five-eighth James Semple to sprint 80 metres clear early in the first half.

Counties fullback Tim Nanai-Williams also set off alarm bells whenever he had the ball in hand and displayed some impeccable goalkicking to land all five of his attempts at goal to finish with a personal haul of 13 points for the night.

Tasman's sole response was a 19th-minute penalty success by halfback Steve Alfeld in an otherwise soulless night for the Tasman side.

Counties were aggressive at the tackle and breakdown, where their bigger forwards revelled in the physical exchanges, although Tasman loosies Joe Wheeler and Jonathan Poff were willing competitors throughout.

However, there was little for Makos coach Kieran Keane to enthuse over in what he described as a "weak" performance by a Tasman side that eventually coughed up an appallingly high 25 turnovers.

"Firstly, we can't accept that level of performance, that's unacceptable," said an irate Keane.

"Taking nothing away from Counties, they had better creators and finishers than we did and I put it down to just the constant mistakes that pervaded our game. I counted 11 unforced errors in the first 30 minutes and then it just kept going."

Keane said he gave the players a "rocket" during the halftime break in the hope of providing some sort of motivation for the second half.

"The error rate came down, but it was still there and it was still too often and you just can't live with that because you can't play the game. And no matter what game you wish to play, if you just make mistake after mistake after one, two or three phases, you can't build any pressure on anybody."

Having performed so well against Canterbury at the breakdown two weeks ago, Keane said they lost significant ground against Counties last night.

"I thought they outgunned us at the tackle and the clean-out area; they caused a lot of problems there.

"It was a weak performance and very frustrating for us [coaches] up here looking down. I think they just have to have a cold hard look in the mirror."

There were few positives for Tasman on the night, although Cook never stopped trying, highlighted by his superb covering tackle on Nanai-Williams when the fullback looked certain to score late in the first half.

However, Keane was in no mood to dish out any accolades.

"The positive for me was that the rain stopped," he said.

Tasman's next match is against Otago next Sunday at Trafalgar Park.

Counties Manukau 23 (Ahsee Tuala, Sherwin Stowers tries, Tim Nanai-Williams 3 pens, 2 cons) Tasman 3 (Steve Alfeld pen) Ht 13-3.