Wellington, Counties Manukau and Jonah Lomu

The Wellington Lions and the Counties Manukau Steelers start round eight of the NPC competition with their match in Pukekohe on Friday night.

In beating the BoP Steamers 30-25 with a bonus point this past Saturday, the Lions are the first team to have qualified for the upcoming NPC quarter-finals on the weekend of 11-13 October.

With two matches to play and 10 points up for grabs, the equation for the Lions is simple – 3 more points would secure a home quarter-final while 5 more points would guarantee a top two finish and a potential home semi-final.

The Counties Manukau are in eighth and hoping to move up the standings, where they would perhaps book another date with the Lions should they make the quarter-finals in seventh or eighth spot.

The NPC competition permutations aside, Friday’s match takes on significance because the two sides play for the Jonah Lomu Memorial Trophy.

Legend Lomu tragically passed away in 2015.

This will be the seventh match between the two unions honouring the life of Lomu, who was a proud Counties and Wellington player and a leading attacking weapon and crowd favourite for both provincial unions. He played 29 games for Counties Manukau between 1994-1999 and 21 games for Wellington between 2000-2003.

Wellington has won all six Lomu Trophy matches thus far: 28-27 in 2016, 53-12 in 2018, 29-22 in 2019, 53-20 in 2020, 64-31 in 2022 and 56-25 in 2023.

The Lions have posted a half century of points against the Steelers in four of their last five encounters, but 2016’s first clash for the Jonah Lomu Memorial Trophy in Pukekohe saw Jackson Garden-Bachop land a last-minute penalty for the one-point win.

The win in 2022 was their highest total against any side since beating Otago 68-7 at Wellington in July 2007 (also Dane Coles’ NPC debut).

The Lions also posted 60 points against the Steelers in their 2009 fixture, winning 62-19 in Pukekohe.  That was the match that wing Hosea Gear scored four tries before 60 minutes were up and then got dragged, putting historians and statisticians in a flap as he was headed for a bigger, perhaps record-breaking try haul.

Gear’s four-try haul against the Steelers was equalled by current All  Blacks hooker Asafo Aumua who scored four tries in the 64-31 win in 2022.

The two provinces met for the first time in any representative match at Athletic Park in the inaugural National Provincial Championship competition in 1976. Wellington won 15-4 that day, but it was not a result that was going to be replicated too often over the next decade of matches between the two sides. In fact, Counties proved a nemesis for Wellington sides up until the mid-1980s, winning six and drawing one out of their next eight matches until Wellington broke the shackles and defeated them 43-19 in 1985.

Wellington has generally had the better of clashes since – with the exception of the late 1990s when Lomu was part of a blockbusting Steelers side.

The two sides have now met 37 times in National Provincial Matches (NPC). Wellington has won23 of those matches and Counties Manukau 12. There have been two draws.

Wellington has scored 1,082 points against Counties Manukau.

Wellington Lions squad to take on Counties-Manukau:

1. Xavier Numia – Oriental-Rongotai
2. Leni Apisai – Paremata-Plimmerton
3. Siale Lauaki – Tawa
4. Dominic Ropeti – Oriental-Rongotai
5. Caleb Delany – Old Boys University
6. Brad Shields – VC- Petone
7. Peter Lakai – Petone
8. Jeremiah Avei-Collins – Northern United
9. Nui Muriwai – Waikato
10. Jackson Garden-Bachop – Northern United
11. Stanley Solomon – Petone
12. Peter Umaga-Jensen – C – Wainuiomata
13. Riley Higgins – Petone
14. Julian Savea – Oriental-Rongotai
15. Tjay Clarke – Petone
16. Leon Tuiloma* – Upper Hutt Rams
17. Yota Kamimori – Stokes Valley
18. PJ Sheck – Tawa
19. Filo Paulo – Hutt Old Boys Marist
20. Matolu Petaia – Tawa
21. Kyle Preston – Old Boys University
22. Callum Harkin – Old Boys University
23. Tom Maiava – Oriental-Rongotai

*Debut

Players unavailable: Akira Ieremia, Harry Press, Hugo Plummer, Losi Filipo, Sione Halalilo, Kazuki Kato, Du’Plessis Kirifi, Penieli Poasa