Wellington Lions v Waikato semi-final stat attack

The Wellington Lions beat Waikato 29-24 in Saturday’s NPC semi-final and will host Bay of Plenty in the final.

Some facts and figures and statistics from the semi-final below, by Peter Marriott.

Semi-final v Waikato: Won 29-24

The Wellington Lions and Waikato have now met on 48 occasions in the NPC. Wellington has won 28 times and Waikato has won 20 times. There have been no draws.

Wellington and Waikato did not meet during the regular season.

Since the introduction of the Finals format in 1992, the Lions have been involved in 19 Semi-final matches winning 14 of them and losing five. They have hosted a Semi-final on 12 occasions winning nine of them and losing three. Those nine wins were against Waikato (28-16 in 2004), Southland (28-19 in 2008), Southland again (34-21 in 2009), Counties Manukau (41-10 in 2013), Otago (34-14 in 2015), Northland (49-21 in 2017: this match was played whilst Wellington was in the Championship Division), Canterbury (30-19 in 2019), Auckland (54-19 in 2022) and now Waikato again (29-24) in 2024.

Wellington and Waikato have actually met in four Semi-final matches: apart from the two mentioned above they first met in Hamilton in 1999 when Wellington won 38-17. They also met in Hamilton in 2003 with Wellington prevailing again this time 30-29. So the score is 4-0 in Wellington’s favour.

For the record Wellington’s five Semi-final losses are against Canterbury (2010), Auckland (2012 and 2018), North Harbour (2016) and Hawke’s Bay (2023).

The Lions have won their last four matches against Waikato to equal their winning sequence first achieved between 1984 and 1988 and then between 2003 and 2005.

It was also the Lions fourth win in a row against Waikato at home. Waikato last beat Wellington, in Wellington 28-24 in 2016.

Wellington has won all seven of their matches played at home in 2024. This equals their record of seven in a row in 2008 (they won their first seven matches before losing the Final against Canterbury) and all seven matches played in 2017 including the Final (59-45) against Bay of Plenty which gained the hosts promotion from the Championship Division back to the Premiership Division for 2018.

The Lions have scored four or more tries ten times in their 12 matches played so far this season. Thatfigure is only exceeded by the 12 times they scored four or more tries in 2017, the season in which they scored a total of 74 tries, a NPC record which still stands.

For the record Wellington has scored four tries a total of 94 times for 75 wins, 18 losses and one draw.

They have scored five tries or more in a match on 143 occasions for 133 wins, nine losses and one draw. Or put another way, Wellington has scored four or more tries in a match 237 times (from 512 matches), for 208 wins (87.8%), 27 losses and two draws.

The Lions won their 10th match of the season. This is the third year in a row they have won that many:

in 2022 it was 11 wins from 13 matches and last year they won 10 of their 12 matches. Their record for most NPC wins in a season is 11, so far achieved on three separate occasions: 2008, 2017 and 2022.

The Lions have scored 53 tries in 2024: the eighth season they have reached the half-century in 49 years of NPC rugby.

Wellington conceded their first seven-point penalty try in a NPC match. These no-conversion tries were introduced in 2017 and it took Wellington 97 matches before being penalised. Riley Higgins is the Lions player who holds the dubious record of being the first to transgress.

On the other hand, the Lions were awarded a penalty try against Hawke’s Bay during their Quarter-final match at Wellington in 2022.

The hosts won that match by seven points (28-21) although the penalty try had been awarded early on in the first half.

The sole penalty kicked in the match by Wellington was their 100th against Waikato. Only Canterbury with 106 penalties, has had more kicked against it by Wellington.

Wellington made five changes to their starting XV against Waikato from the one which played the Quarter-final match against Counties Manukau. There were three changes in the backs and two in the forwards.

Kyle Preston scored two tries in a match for the first time. It is significant in that he is the 100th Lions player to score two tries or more in a NPC match. Stu Wilson was the first to do so: against Canterbury at Wellington in August 1976. It was Wellington’s fifth NPC match.

Preston now has 10 tries in 23 appearances.

It was Siale Lauaki’s third try in his 25th match.

Penieli scored his third try in his 19th appearance.

All three players had not previously scored a try against Waikato.

Callum Harkin, deputising for an injured Jackson Garden-Bachop: (sitting on 99 matches for Wellington) added nine points with the boot.

He now has scored 37 points in nine matches for Wellington.

Riley Higgins was awarded a yellow card in the 36th minute. He is the third Lions player in 2024 to receive one.

Tom Maiava, who was on the bench as a replacement, was not used during the match.

Waikato’s two try scorers, Oli Mathis and Mason Tupaea, both scored their first try against Wellington.

Amazingly, this was just Aaron Cruden’s third match against Wellington since making his NPC debut for Manawatu in 2008. In 2011 he kicked 16 points for Manawatu which comprised two conversions, three penalties and one drop goal. That drop goal is actually the last one to be kicked against Wellington by any side. Cruden missed none of his three attempts at goal for Waikato (two conversions and a penalty) to keep alive a streak of 21 successful goal kicks by opposition players in the last four matches against Wellington.

Quintony Ngatai, who was on the replacement bench for Waikato, did not get onto the field.

Angus Mabey controlled his sixth match involving the Lions. It was his second of the season: he was also in charge of their match against Bay of Plenty in Round 7 which went to Golden Point.

Warwick Lahmert and Paul Williams were the Assistant Referees and Richard Kelly was the TMO.

Wellington will meet Bay of Plenty in the Final to be played in Wellington on Saturday 26.

Wellington’s overall record in the NPC is: played 512 matches, won 326 (63.7%), lost 174 and drawn 12.