Matatū pip Blues to make final

Matatū pipped the Blues for the second time this Super Rugby Aupiki season to set up a final with either Chiefs Manawa or Hurricanes Poua in Hamilton on Saturday.

Chey Robins-reti scored a hat-trick for the South Islanders, with her first two tries coming in the final 10 minutes of the first half and her third giving her side the lead for the final time with less than 10 minutes to go.

These two teams were only separated by two points when Matatū won in Dunedin in round one and the margin was only three points this time around at North Harbour Stadium in Auckland, as Matatū won 26-23.

The Blues were able to eke out an early advantage as Krysten Cottrell slotted a pair of penalties, but it was Matatū who scored the first five-pointer.

Second five-eighth Amy du Plessis played a short pass to Kendra Reynolds and there was no stopping the flanker as she charged to the line from 20m out.

The Blues hit back through wing Katelyn Vahaakolo down their right and were on top for most of the first half, before Matatū struck a pair of crucial blows just before the break.

Right wing Robins-reti scored twice in the space of seven minutes down the right to put her side up 19-11 at halftime, with Renee Holmes hitting the post with her first sideline conversion, then making the second from slightly closer in.

Robins-reti thought she had a hattrick six minutes into the second half, but replays showed she had just lost contact with the ball as she tried to ground it.

The Blues had spent the opening stages of the period defending their line but used the let-off to break out and strung together 16 phases before Patricia

Maliepo broke through two tackles to score and when Cottrell added the extras, the margin was back to one.

They should have got back in front immediately afterwards, when Ruahei Demant ran the ball 50m from her own in-goal and Cottrell then made a break down the left, opting to pass to her inside and a stumbling Ariana Bayler, rather than to her outside, where Kolose would have run clear.

What followed was an arm-wrestle,

with neither side able to make a breakthrough, until Liana Mikaele-tu’u crashed over shortly after a lineout drive with just over 10 minutes to play, putting the Blues ahead by four as Cottrell missed the kick under pressure from a pack of runners.

The Blues then found themselves defending their line for the first time since the opening stages of the half and they couldn’t keep Matatū out a second time, with Robins-reti completing her hat-trick following a surging run by Amy du Plessis.

Holmes pushed her side’s lead out to three points – but did the Blues have anything left in the tank, with just under six minutes to play? Matatū stopped them as they tried to set up off another lineout drive and Lucy Jenkins then came up trumps with a turnover with a minute remaining.