Last round humdinger for Swindale Shield

An exciting 2009 Swindale Shield competition goes down to the wire this Saturday in a massive last round set of matches, in which four teams are still alive to win or share the title and two other teams are still vying for eighth place and the last available spot in the coveted Jubilee Cup.

In a humdinger of a last round, two of the four leading contenders are playing each other and a third, Northern United, are playing defending Swindale Shield and co-Jubilee Cup champions Marist St. Pat's in must-win matches.

All eyes and ears will be on the Polo Ground where leaders Petone are the only side who can win the first round title this weekend by not having to rely on other results. But should Petone lose to Oriental-Rongotai then the door is ajar for any one of Norths, Ories and Poneke to win or share the Shield.

Petone need a bonus point win over Ories to win the title on their own no matter what else happens, while just a win without scoring four tries will ensure that they at least share what would be their 14^th Swindale Shield win since 1969.

At Porirua, Norths will win their fourth first round title in seven years on their own if they beat MSP and Petone loses to Ories, and they will draw level with Petone and share it with them if they earn a bonus point win over MSP and Petone beats Ories but fails to score four tries.

Ories' hopes of sharing the Swindale Shield with Petone rest on them securing a bonus point win over Petone and Norths losing to Marist St. Pat's and Poneke losing to Wainuiomata

Waiting in the wings is Poneke, who can still win or share just their second Shield title if they beat Wainuiomata and both Petone loses to Ories and Norths goes down to MSP.

At the same time Wainuiomata will also be going into their game against Poneke all guns blazing, needing to defeat Poneke to have any chance of making the top eight ahead of Tawa. Tawa are currently eighth on 18 points and need at least two points from their final round match against Hutt Old Boys Marist at Lyndhurst Park to make sure of progressing ahead of Wainuiomata who are on 14 points.

Wainuiomata can grab eighth place if they earn a bonus point win over Poneke and Tawa is shut out by HOBM. But if these two sides finish on the same number of points it will come down to points differential and the calculators will come out. In the first instance this would be decided by whom beat whom in the round robin, but since they drew 20-20 in their clash three weeks ago, points differential would decide who goes through. Tawa and Wainuiomata are currently separated on points differential by just 13.

Poneke will be defending the Paul Hakaraia Trophy that they have won twice at Premier level since Wainuiomata's promotion in 2007, winning 51-13 in 2007 and 37-12 last year.

The Hakaraia Trophy brings special significance to players and supporters of both teams, after the tragic death in a diving accident in January 2007 of Peter Hakaraia, the son of Paul who the trophy originally honoured. It is now played for in the memory of both Paul and son Peter. Paul was a lifelong associate of both the Poneke and Wainuiomata clubs.

Two of the six Swindale Shield matches this weekend won't have any bearing on the title or Jubilee/Hardham Cup outcome. These are Upper Hutt versus Old Boys-University at Maidstone Park and Avalon against the Wests Roosters at Fraser Park.

Upper Hutt are safely through to the Jubilee Cup round, while OBU, Avalon and Wests have already been confirmed as Premier 2 Hardham Cup starters on 13 June.

The big games at the Polo Ground and Porirua Park that will decide the winner or winners are hard to pick, although Petone could be favoured to have a slim edge over Ories, having won nine from 10 and beaten the other two big contenders Norths and Poneke already.

But they are up against a well performed Ories side who have eight from 10 including three from four at home and are also defending both the Bill Brien Cup and the Jim Brown Memorial Trophy against Petone.

Honours were shared one apiece between Petone and Ories in two head to head encounters last year, Ories winning 33-26 in the Swindale Shield and Petone coming out on top 35-8 in their Jubilee Cup round robin fixture.

Petone prevailed in each of their previous five clashes, although some of these games were close, such as 2003's 40-34 win to Petone in which they scored a try on fulltime to win, and 2006's 30-22 win when only superior goal kicking got Petone home.

At Porirua Park, MSP can't defend the Swindale Shield that they won this time last year by beating Upper Hutt 41-0 but they can knock Norths out of contention and at the same time open the door for both Ories and Poneke.

In another huge clash in its own right, this is a repeat of last year's Jubilee Cup final at Westpac Stadium drawn 10-10 and shared between the two.

With losses this season to Poneke, Petone and Ories, MSP can still possibly finish the Swindale Shield as high as third and ahead of both Poneke and Ories if they can beat Norths in the last round. MSP, with the second best attacking and third best defensive record in the competition so far will have to play well to contain Norths who are far and away the leading attacking side and are averaging 46 points per game. Since losing their first two games to Poneke and Petone, Norths have been unstoppable and have now won eight in a row.

MSP have a good recent record against Norths in their favour, having won four, drawn one and lost just one of their last six encounters, while Norths have only earned a four-try bonus point in two of these six clashes.

Norths and MSP met three times last year, with MSP prevailing in both the Swindale Shield (25-22 at Evans Bay) and Jubilee Cup (25-17 at Porirua) round robin games. For their last bonus point win over MSP, Norths must go back five games to the 2007 Swindale Shield in which they scored five tries and won 39-23.

In another unique scenario, Norths could end up sharing the Swindale Shield title with Petone and thus be current co-champions of both the Swindale Shield and Jubilee Cup. But at the moment, MSP have possession of the Jubilee Cup, meaning that if this was to occur and Petone got to take the Shield home for their first six months of their co-reign, then Norths would be co-champions of both trophies but be in possession of neither.

Norths could also be playing to the clanging of silverware won from earlier games if both their women's and Senior 1 teams also beat their MSP counterparts and win their grades.

Norths will win the first round Fleurs Trophy Women's Premier grade if they defeat the MSP women's team at Porirua Park 4 at 11.30am, while their Senior 2 side will win the National Mutual Cup if they also defeat MSP in their match at Porirua 2 at 1.15pm.

While the unbeaten Norths women's team will be favoured to overcome MSP, who are sixth equal with three other teams, Johnsonville can still get up and share the title with them should Norths lose to MSP and Johnsonville scores four tries or more and beats fourth placed OBU.

The Senior 2 match between the Norths and MSP teams is a straight ‘virtual final', both will finish in the top two and progress to the Senior 1 Ed Chaney Cup no matter what the outcome. This promises to be a ripper between the best attacking team in this grade this year (MSP) against the best defenders (Norths).

The pressure is on both Johnsonville and Rimutaka in the last round of the Senior 1 Harper Lock Shield this weekend, both of whom will fill the third and fourth places for the Hardham Cup if they win.

Third placed Johnsonville who play eighth placed Hutt Old Boys Marist and fourth placed Rimutaka who play 10^th placed Stokes Valley will be desperate for last round victories to clinch Hardham Cup places and gain a shot at qualifying for the Swindale Shield in 2010.

But should either Johnsonville or Rimutaka meet defeat this weekend one of them will likely be leapfrogged into the top four by the winner of the Petone and Ories Senior 1 match at the Polo Ground.

Harper Lock Shield winners MSP and Poneke have already grabbed the first two of four qualifying spots for the Hardham Cup, starting next week.

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