Wellington Lions – Northland Taniwha: Some NPC history

The two teams from either end of the North Island, Northland and Wellington, meet in Thursday’s fifth round Men’s NPC match in Whangarei, in what is expected to be a fast and furious fixture.

Northland beat the Lions 35-5 when the two teams last met in Whangarei in 2014, breaking a nine-match losing streak that spanned the period 2001-2013. Each of those nine wins to the Lions were bonus point victories, highlights being 51-18, 65-12 and 43-19 wins in Wellington in 2002 and 2004 and 2011 and a 41-7 win in Whangarei in 2009. Wellington won 29-0 last year, scoring four tries.

Overall, the Lions have won 24 of 30 Men’s NPC matches against Northland since 1976. Northland was the first team that Wellington beat in NPC Rugby, winning 13-0 on 10 July 1976.

Heading into this clash, Wellington has scored 835 points and 118 tries in all championship matches against Northland and the visitors have scored 466 points and 55 tries against Wellington.

See below for three historical NPC encounters between Wellington and Northland.

1976: Wellington 13 - Northland 0

"We mightn't entertain them, but we won't be far away at the finish," Lions selector Ray Dellabarca told the Evening Post after Wellington's first win over Northland (North Auckland) in six attempts going back to 1939, and also Wellington's first ever NPC/ITM Cup win on home soil, in the competition's inaugural season.

Geography and a lack of tradition (Wellington had been playing Southland since 1896) meant that the Lions and the Taniwha rarely met in the decades up to their first NPC clash in 1976, but Northland certainly had the wood on Wellington up to that point. They won three of their first five encounters (in 1939, 1961 and 1967) while the other two of these were draws (1954 and 1970).

The match was billed as a clash between two sides eager to play a positive brand of rugby, but a "vicious switch in the weather just before the start", AKA a bitter southerly with rain and showers, forced a change in tactics to 10-man rugby and a dourer affair.

Wellington's tactics revolved around the tactical boot of first five-eighth Brian Cederwall and the hard work by the forwards. In treacherous conditions fullback Clive Currie and wing Stu Wilson - both 20-year olds and future All blacks - defied the conditions and their skill and flair helped influence the outcome.

Wellington scored two tries, to 111-game prop Kevin Phelan and Wilson. Currie kicked a penalty and a conversion. In Northland eyes, both tries were controversial. Either an alleged foot into touch by hooker Kevin Horan in the lead-up to Phelan's try or a questioned forward pass from Currie to Wilson in creating his try after a surge from the back of a lineout by veteran flanker Graham Williams could have been referred to the TMO if it existed.

But they were both allowed and the Lions strolled to a 13-0 win.

From that point in the season, the Lions struggled for momentum, drawing their next match 18-18 with eventual 1976 champions Bay of Plenty and then losing to Canterbury 14-15 en route to a sixth placed finish. With three key players in the All Blacks team in South Africa at the time, including their best player Sid Going, Northland struggled and were relegated to ‘Division Two' at season's end.

1984: Wellington 58 - Northland 12

It was a game of two halves in their September 1984 clash at Athletic Park. Wellington was thoroughly unconvincing in the first half and led 16-8 at the turn. Both teams showed a willingness to excite, but a host of errors turned much of the first half exchanges into a shambles.

Coach Ian Upston's words at the interval had an effect on the side and the second 40 minutes was a different story for the Lions who steamrolled the Kauri contenders to win 58-12.

Wellington rattled on 22 points between the 40th and 50th minutes. The Wellington forwards laid the platform, with locks Gerrard Wilkinson and Murray Pierce and loose forwards Murray Mexted and Mike O'Leary dominant. Prop Brian McGratten was the main benefactor of the pack's hard work, scoring a hat-trick of tries - and he remains the only prop to score three tries in an NPC Division 1 match.

2004: Wellington 65 - Northland 12

By the time the two teams met at Westpac Stadium in 2004 the NPC had long since taken hold as the country's premier provincial rugby competition, professionalism had been firmly established and at the time the Lions were the hottest provincial ticket in the land.

Two weeks out from the semi-finals, the Rodney So'oialo led Lions cemented their position at the top of the table with this big win over Northland. They then went to Southland and won 30-0, thus qualifying first and securing a home semi-final.

First five-eighth Riki Flutey scored two of nine tries and was the Player of the Match, running hard and straight all afternoon and kicking well for position. Many of the tries scored were vintage. None more so than flanker Scott Waldrom's seventh try. Waldrom was on hand to cap a sweeping length of the field movement from a defensive five-metre scrum. Then there was the hugely popular try scored by Ma'a Nonu, who, returning from a broken thumb, bursted through the defence to score only moments after he had been subbed on the field for Tana Umaga.

The Taniwha put up a brave fight, competing admirably in the middle stages, and they trailed only 23-12 with 25 minutes remaining. But, a bit like their 1984 meeting, the Lions roared in the second half, and they ran in a further six unanswered tries to rock the visitors. Taken with a 73-28 drubbing of Taranaki the week before, the Lions had now scored 19 tries and 138 points in their last two outings.

The winning margin of 53 points eclipsed the Lions' previous best over Northland of 46, set in the 1984 match. After beating Southland the following week, the Lions beat Waikato 28-16 in their home semi-final, before missing out on what would have been a fifth title by losing to Canterbury 27-40 in the home final.

An earlier version of this article was first published here in 2014.