Saturday 07/09:
Auckland v North Harbour
Wellington v Southland
Otago v Canterbury
Hawke's Bay v Tasman (Ranfurly Shield)
Sunday 08/09:
Taranaki v Waikato
Counties-Manukau v Northland
Wednesday 11/09:
Otago v Wellington
Notes:
The biggest game this round is the Ranfurly Shield match on Saturday night, Tasman have never one it as the combined union of Marlborough/Nelson Bays so they'll be up for it; and of course Hawke's Bay will be desperate to keep their winning record. Whoever wins gets both the log o' wood and top of the table.
Other than that, there's a couple of other usually fierce derbies. The Battle of the Bridge on Satuurday, then Otago v Canterbury. Most of the rest of the matches aren't especially exciting.
My Predictions:
BoP 24+
North Harbour 9-
Wellington 18+
Otago 3-
Hawke's Bay 3-
Taranaki 9+
Northland 9-
Wellington 6+
Well the Hawke's Bay v Tasman game lived up to the billing, hell of a match. Hawke's Bay had it won by scoring a late try and then Toala kicking an incredible side line conversion. Only to inexplicably try to take it back to 2010 and grind out ruck after ruck with 3 minutes to play around the halfway line.
They needed to get a kick into the Tasman 22m and force them to try to run it back, but instead the inevitable happened and they gave up a stupid holding on penalty at 48m, which the Tasman replacement pivot kicked with metres to spare to take the shield off us.