Premiership leaders Auckland have been stunned at Eden Park tonight after Championship side Otago handed them their first loss of the 2018 Mitre Cup season.
The southerners came away with a 31-26 win thanks largely to the efforts of midfielder Matt Faddes who scored a hat-trick in the back and forth contest.
To make matters worse for Auckland, Otago managed the win despite losing captain Michael Collins to the sin bin early for a deliberate knock down of a certain try in the fifth minute.
But things were going wrong for the hosts from the first kickoff after they gave up a try in the opening minutes when sevens star Vilimoni Koroi sprinted away to score under the posts after Otago scooped up the loose ball from an Auckland ruck on halfway.
Auckland recovered though, scoring two quick tries through Caleb Clarke and Dalton Papali’I to take a 14-7 lead.
The teams then traded two tries a piece to leave Auckland clinching at a 19-17 halftime lead before Otago started their comeback in the second half.
Faddes got them off to the perfect start when he scored his second try of the night by stretching out for the line before following it up with a stunning finish 15 minutes later.
The midfielder chased a floated kick and recovered the ball 10 metres from Auckland’s line before spinning out of a sweeping tackle and diving over to score, giving Otago a 31-19 lead with 15 minutes left.
Auckland weren’t done though with captain Akira Ioane taking the ball off the back of a scrum six minutes later and powering over to make the score 31-26 with nine minutes left.
But then Otago got strategic, killing the clock with 26 phases of hit ups from the forwards.
It almost worked, but they were penalised for not releasing with 20s left in the game, giving Auckland one last chance to win.
But the defence held and forced the error, giving Auckland their first loss of the season.
Despite the result, Auckland still remain top of the table in Premiership standings and added two bonus points from the loss.
Otago leapfrogged Northland in the Championship standings to sit third behind Waikato and Hawke’s Bay.
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