Lions looking for a stampede in Bulls territory

Kyle Preston and the Lions in action against Taranaki last year. Wellington won last year’s second round NPC fixture 26-19. 

Despite their big win over Southland this past Saturday, the Wellington Lions still have much to do over the final two rounds if they wish to make the NPC quarter-finals.

A bonus point win over Taranaki this Saturday afternoon at New Plymouth will put them in a good position for this, while that plus a couple of other results going their way could put them in with a shot of earning a home top eight date.

Heading into this weekend’s ninth round of 10, the Lions are ninth on the standings on 19 points, behind eighth placed Northland on 22 and further adrift of fourth placed Bay of Plenty (whom they play next week) on 26.

Taranaki will be confident of victory over their former Hurricanes cousins, beating Hawke’s Bay 38-24 last weekend. They are third on 27 points and in the box seat for a home post round-robin run.

Forget the big pre-season win by Taranaki over Wellington at Rugby League Park back at the end of July, that was just warm-up rugby. This one could be closer.

In Wellington Lions team news, they have made three changes to the starting 15 to that which beat Southland last weekend.

Penieli Poasa comes into hooker to replace James O’Reilly, Matolu Petaia starts at lock and Kapu Broughton-Winterburn starts at left wing.

In positional changes, Dominic Ropeti moves from lock to No. 8 in place of Peter Lakai and Callum Harkin moves from the wing to fullback for Ruben Love.

Asafo Aumua returns from injury to join the bench while Tom Maiava also comes on to the bench.

The Lions team is:

1. Xavier Numia (Ories)
2. Penieli Poasa (Ories)
3. Siale Lauaki (Norths)
4. Metolu Petaia (Tawa)
5. Akira Ieremia (Tawa)
6. Caleb Delany (OBU)
7. Sione Halalilo (Ories)
8. Dominic Ropeti ( Ories)
9. Kyle Preston (OBU)
10. Jackson Garden-Bachop (Norths)
11. Kapu Broughton-Winterburn (HOBM)
12. Julian Savea (Ories)
13. Losi Filipo (Petone)
14. Stanley Solomon (Petone)
15. Callum Harkin (OBU)

BENCH DWELLERS

16. Asafo Aumua (Avalon)
17. Senio Sanele (Upper Hutt Rams)
18. PJ Sheck (Tawa)
19. Johnny Falloon (OBU)
20. Cody Lokotui (Axemen)
21. Nui Muriwai (HOBM)
22. Tom Maiava (Ories)
23. Yamada (Japan)

The two teams will be contesting the John F Henning trophy, which Wellington retained last year in their 26-19 win.

This extended their head-to-head record to having met on 37 occasions in NPC matches, with Wellington having won 31 of these to Taranaki’s six.

Another milestone they will look to tick off early is bringing up a century of tries against Taranaki. They are sitting on 99 tries against them.

This rivalry of course was long-established by the time of the start of the NPC in 1976.

The two teams commenced meeting in 1894 and would play each other often twice a year in a home and away series except for hiatuses between 1916-18 and 1942-44 owing to the wars.

Taranaki won their first game in Hawera 6-0, the second in Wellington in 1895 was a 0-0 draw and Taranaki won their third 6-0 in New Plymouth in 1896.

It wasn’t until 1897 when Wellington had their first win over them, a 3-0 victory in Wellington.

Their fixture in 1907 was abandoned at halftime because of the weather and no result was recorded – as per the Evening Post report on 2 September 1907:

+++++

Another story previously published on this website looking at this rivalry is below:

Wellington v Taranaki 1953: the high point of a golden year