Wellington Lions edge Tasman Mako in tense Ranfurly Shield clash

At Sky Stadium, Wellington: Wellington 7 (James O’Reilly try 29min; Aidan Morgan con, pen) Tasman 0. HT: 7-0

Tasman’s long wait to get their hands on the Ranfurly Shield drags on.

The treasured Log o’ Wood will remain in the capital for at least another 10 days, after Wellington ground out a 7-0 win and rebuffed the Mako’s challenge on Wednesday night.

Indeed, fans at the top of the South Island can bury any plans to celebrate the start of what they’d hoped would have been their team’s first Shield tenure in history.

Mako fans have long bemoaned the fact the two-times NPC champions had launched just three challenges since they were founded 17 years ago ahead of their latest challenge, and had set their eyes on becoming the 17th provincial union to taste Shield success.

But it was not fourth time lucky, as the reigning champion Lions notched their second defence in the space of five days, and their fifth defence since kicking off their 11th tenure last year.

It was far from pretty, too, not that Wellington – in the middle of their storm week – will care about style points.

Hooker James O’Reilly scored their only try of the night in the first half, when he cashed in a lineout drive set up by a pearler of a 40-metre kick by Ruben Love.

Scored on the half hour mark, it was the decisive play in a tense and tight game, albeit one mighty hard on the eyes.

At times, it was like pulling fangs as mistakes plagued both teams at Wellington’s Sky Stadium, where the hosts racked up six handling errors in the first 20 minutes alone.

The good news for them was Tasman also had trouble holding on to the ball, highlighted by blockbusting centre Levi Aumua spilling two passes in the second half, one of which ruined a golden attacking opportunity after Peter Lakai made a hash of the restart.

Poor handling was far from Tasman’s only hindrance on a night they were their own worst enemy.

Having lost promising young No 10 Taine Robinson to a head-knock inside 10 minutes, replacement Tim O’Malley and wing Macca Springer missed penalty kicks, their lineout was shambolic, and they struggled to get over the advantage line and generate clean ball.

Credit must go to Wellington.

Led by the powerful loose forward trio of Du’Plessis Kirifi, Lakai and Brad Shields, their defence was excellent – they made a whopping 212 tackles – in the process of shutting down a side featuring game-breakers Aumua, Timoci Tavatavanawai and Springer.

Speaking of Aumua and Tavatavanawai, they combined to create Tasman’s best chance, inside the final quarter, only for Wellington replacement Dominic Ropeti to scramble back and defuse the dangerous centre-kick Aumua uncorked after bursting free.

It was also Ropeti who earned a crunch breakdown steal in the final five minutes as the Mako launched a desperate raid.

The big moment

Kudos to Ropeti, who scampered back and saved the day after Aumua broke free down the right-hand flank and put an in-field kick in.

Match rating

6/10. There were far too many unforced errors for this to rate higher. It was, however, a good old fashion tussle.

MVP

Take your pick from any of the Wellington loose forwards. But let’s go with young Peter Lakai, who carried with venom and was a tackling machine.

The big picture

The Shield is safe for at least 10 days. Next up it’s North Harbour Saturday week, but not before Wellington finish their storm week with a rematch of last year’s final against Canterbury in Christchurch on Sunday.