Northland have reached the final of New Zealand’s provincial rugby championship for the first time in the competition’s 50-year history, beating Otago 38-19 at Semenoff Stadium in Whangārei on Friday night.
Prop Marcel Renata scored twice in the first half, Heremaia Murray and Nathan Salmon added tries after the break, and captain Rivez Reihana kicked 18 points from three conversions and four penalties as the Taniwha turned a 17-14 half-time lead into a 21-5 second half. RNZ’s match report records that Renata crossed from a lineout drive inside seven minutes, Kieran McClea levelled for Otago, a Reihana penalty edged the hosts back in front, and Christian Lio-Willie put the visitors ahead 14-10 late in the half after Northland were caught offside. Renata’s second try on the stroke of half-time swung the lead back to the home side.
The decisive period came after the break. Murray scored in the left corner in the 57th minute and Reihana converted from the touchline, then three more Reihana penalties stretched the lead to 33-14 as Otago’s discipline frayed. Salmon finished in the same corner in the 77th minute before Jona Nareki scored a consolation try for Otago on full time.
Otago captain Christian Lio-Willie told the Sky Sport commentary team his side had been outmanoeuvred, according to the Otago Daily Times. “Rivez and the boys controlled the game really well,” he said, adding that Northland “got into the territory game and we were just on the back foot from there.” He summed up the second half in one line. “When Northland get on a roll like that, they are hard to stop.”
Otago finished third on the regular season table and were last year’s beaten finalists against Canterbury. They had arrived in Whangārei on the back of a 50-14 quarter-final win over Hawke’s Bay, with a pack widely rated among the best in the competition.
The result caps an extraordinary season for a province that has never been an NPC champion and, until this week, had never played in a semi-final. Stuff reported before the match that head coach Ryan Martin had set the bar high when the squad first gathered in early July. “We started pre-season, day one, with the plan of winning the competition, that was the goal,” Martin said. “We were quite dead set on that as a group. There were a few people who questioned that, from outside our environment, and almost laughed at it.”
Northland finished second on the table with seven wins from ten games, then beat Tasman 26-21 in a home quarter-final on 9 October to earn the right to host Otago. Martin, who joined Northland as attack coach in 2024 before taking over as head coach last year, told Stuff the home advantage mattered. “To be in Whangārei is phenomenal,” he said. “Semenoff Stadium’s a beautiful amphitheatre for a game.”
The high point of the regular season was the night of 20 August, when Northland went to Christchurch and beat Canterbury 36-12 to lift the Ranfurly Shield for the first time in 48 years. The province last held the Log o’ Wood in 1978 and 1979 under its old name of North Auckland, having also won it in 1950, 1960 and 1971. Captain Rob Rush told Sky Sport after the Christchurch win that the moment was hard to put into words, RugbyPass reported. “I can’t even describe it, it’s bloody surreal. It feels unreal,” he said. “Dreams come true.”
Northland defended the Shield against Tasman and Waikato before losing it 22-19 to Counties Manukau in Whangārei on 26 September, as the Northern Advocate reported at the time. The team regrouped quickly, and Reihana told Stuff in the lead-up to the semi-final that the group was not finished. “If you’d have said we’d bring the shield home, and then we’d be in a semifinal, let alone home quarterfinal, we definitely would’ve taken that and I probably would’ve said you’re crazy,” he said. “To be here is pretty surreal, but our group is very hungry to create more history.”
Reihana has been the competition’s standout goal-kicker and playmaker. NZCity reported on Friday that he is the only player to have passed 100 points this season, and that Martin has been pressing his case for All Blacks selection with a national selector, describing him as one of the best No 10s he has worked with.
The crowds at Semenoff Stadium have grown with the results. Winger Brady Rush told Stuff that Martin had made a point of teaching the squad the province’s history, and that the supporters had responded. “Everyone loves playing at home but lately, the crowd’s been selling out. It’s a sea of blue in the crowd, full, packed to the brim, pretty special,” he said. Asked about the possibility of a home final, Rush gave the phrase the squad has adopted. “Defend the pa,” he said, using the Māori word for a fortified village. “That’s what everyone’s been saying at the moment. If the results go the way they do, and we get a home final, I think that’d be pretty cool.”
Whether that happens will be settled on Sunday afternoon in Christchurch, where top qualifiers and reigning champions Canterbury host Taranaki in the second semi-final. Canterbury thrashed Waikato 62-26 in their quarter-final and Taranaki beat North Harbour 50-31 in theirs, according to the Highlanders’ semi-final preview. If Taranaki win, Northland will host the final in Whangārei as the higher-ranked side. If Canterbury win, the Taniwha will travel south, and NZCity reports the decider would then be played in Christchurch on Labour Day Monday. Either way, the final falls over Labour Weekend, giving Northland more than a week to recover.
Assistant coach Robbie Abel credited Martin’s work for getting the Taniwha this far, NZCity reported on Saturday, and said every day between now and the final counts. For a union founded in 1920 whose only national titles came at second division level in 1977 and 1997, and which finished ninth as recently as last season, one more win would complete the most remarkable turnaround in provincial rugby for many years.
Were you at Semenoff Stadium on Friday night, and can Northland go one better over Labour Weekend? Tell us in the comments.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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