Counties Manukau beat Southland 47-24 in the NPC on Saturday, a result that settled any doubt about which side deserved to win. The hosts put together a performance that left their visitors chasing shadows from the first whistle, and here's the thing — this wasn't a close contest dressed up as a thriller. The final score told the story before it was even written.
Counties Manukau had been building something, though you'd need to look at their last five results to see the pattern. They beat Wellington 46-35, then lost to Waikato 12-45, dropped points against Taranaki 5-20, and took on North Harbour 19-59 before finding form again against Wellington. Southland's run told a different tale entirely — losses to Hawke's Bay 21-36 and Tasman 17-46, but also wins over Waikato 32-31 and Manawatu 35-36.
A forty-seven point haul against a side that had shown flashes of competitiveness suggests Counties Manukau found a way back into it after their earlier struggles. To be fair, Southland had beaten Manawatu in their previous outing, so this wasn't a team that had stopped caring. They just weren't good enough on the day.
We had given Counties Manukau a 70% chance of victory and, by then, it felt obvious we wouldn't be wrong. The confidence wasn't built on optimism — it came from watching how they responded after the Waikato defeat, and how they carried that momentum against Wellington. The prediction held, and that's all there is to say about it.
The gap between the sides was twenty-three points, and that tells you everything about where Counties Manukau stand in this competition. Southland will need to work out what went wrong, because beating Manawatu one week and losing by this margin the next doesn't suggest a team finding its feet. The hosts move on, and the visitors have questions to answer.