Hawke’s Bay eye quarters

Winning pretty wasn’t important for Hawke’s Bay in Napier last night.

What mattered to the Magpies was that they kept their NPC title hopes alive with a bonus-point 25-17 victory over Tasman, bounding over Otago into fourth place in the Odds conference following this final round-robin match atMcLean Park.

Now the pressure is on Otago to produce an upset win – with a bonus point – over Canterbury tonight in Dunedin, a difficult assignment at the best of times.

This win in dreadful conditions on their home track should have been enough for Hawke’s Bay to secure a place in next weekend’s quarterfinals.

For Tasman, the news wasn’t so good. They remain in fourth place in the Evens conference, and are in danger of being run down by Northland when they play Manawatū tomorrow.

Hawke’s Bay leaned on a magnificent defensive effort in the second half to keep Tasman, who unloaded All Blacks wings Sevu Reece and Leicester Fainga’anuku off the bench, scoreless until a spectacular late try to Viliama Napa.

Tasman really had no answer to the Bay’s intensity in the tackle.

While Tasman knew what brand of the medicine Hawke’s Bay were going to serve-up, that wasn’t to say they could swipe the ladle from their hands.

Because when the Bay went to their lineout drives in the first half, on two occasions it was like hitting the right buttons in a gaming machine in Las Vegas.