Canterbury vs Southland
Canterbury vs Southland
International Rugby Events
European Union
All kind of International Rugby Events, like June Tours, Pacific cups and all others.
Air New Zealand Cup
Match scheduled:
Date: 22-10-2009
Time: 06:35 until 08:35
Canterbury vs Southland
 |  |  |  |  |
| Pool A | Pool B |
|---|---|
 Auckland |  Canterbury |
 Bay of Plenty |  Counties Manukau |
 Manawatu |  Hawke's Bay |
 North Harbour |  Northland |
 Taranaki |  Otago |
 Tasman |  Southland |
 Wellington |  Waikato |
Auckland topped Pool A with 25 points for Round One the most by any team and Pool B was taken out by Waikato on 24 points.
 |  |  |  |  |
Round Two
Round Two was played over three weeks with the top three teams from each pool advancing into the Top Six, Auckland, North Harbour and Wellington were the three teams from pool A to advance with 25, 23 and 21 points respectively. The three teams from pool B were Waikato on 24 points and Canterbury and Otago on 23 points each. The remaining teams would be put into Repechage A and B. The teams in the Top Six would carry over there points from Round One and play three other teams they did not play in the first round, the Top Six automatically advance to the quarter-finals, their seedings are determined by Round Two. The teams in each Repechage play each other team in their respective pool, these teams do not carry over their points from the first round, the top team from each Repechage would play on to the quarter-finals.
| Top Six |
|---|
| Auckland |
| Canterbury |
| North Harbour |
| Otago |
| Waikato |
| Wellington |
| Repechage A | Repechage B |
|---|---|
| Bay of Plenty | Northland |
| Counties Manukau | Southland |
| Hawke's Bay | Taranaki |
| Manawatu | Tasman |
Waikato topped the Top Six with a total of 36 points, by doing this Waikato clinched home advantage through the Finals. Bay of Plenty took out repechage A with a dominating 14 points while repechage B was not so easy with Southland taken it out by one point from Northland 9 to 8, Southland's last game was against Northland and they lost, they had to get a bonus point to advance to the quarter-finals, they did this by losing by seven points.
[edit] Quarters and Semis
 |  |  |  |  |
The finals are a straight lose and go home format. Waikato were the top seed going in and were home for the finals.
The eight finalists were:
| Finalists | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Waikato |
| 2 | Auckland |
| 3 | North Harbour |
| 4 | Wellington |
| 5 | Canterbury |
| 6 | Otago |
| 7 | Bay of Plenty |
| 8 | Southland |
1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5 was how they determined who faced who in the quarter-finals, this translates into Waikato vs Southland, Auckland vs Bay of Plenty, North Harbour vs Otago and Wellington vs Canterbury.
Waikato beat Southland 24-12 in the first match of the quarter-finals and Auckland trounced Bay of Plenty 46-14. The surprise of the week was a 56-21 try fest won by Otago against North Harbour, the only away team to win in the quarters. With the last match of the round, Wellington blocked out Canterbury into the semi's with satisfying 36-21 win in the Capital.
The semi-finals were to be contested Waikato facing off against Otago and Auckland playing Wellington at home. Wellington won their match against Auckland 30 to 15 while Waikato had an easy win with the scoreline of 44-15. This would see Waikato and Wellington square off in the Inaugural Grand Final of the Air New Zealand Cup.
Grand Final
The 2006 Air New Zealand Cup Grand Final was played on 21 October. It pitted the Lions from the capital city facing of the against the countrymen who call themselves the Mooloos. Bryce Lawrence officiated the match in front of 28,000 people at Waikato Stadium. The game finished with the Mooloo men on top with an aggregate score of 68, 37 points to and 31 points to Wellington. Byron Kelleher lead the charge for Waikato with scoring two of their four tries with Richard Kahui and Brendon Leonard scoring the others. David Hill scored seven kicks, landing all the conversions and three penalties that's 17 points in total, the leading point scorer for the game. Ma'a Nonu also scored two tries with Captain Tana Umaga following with one of his own, Jimmy Gopperth landed 6 kicks, 2 conversions and 4 penalties. Waikato wrapped the game up with about 5 mins to go, not even Umaga's try could save the Wellingtonians. Waikato finished what was one of their most successful seasons to date and Wellington was soon to realise winning the final was more easier said than done
.
2007 and 2008
The Air NZ Cup saw Auckland and Canterbury come out as champs in 2007 and 2008 respectively, both winning their finals against the Lions from Wellington. It also saw some changes in the format which the teams played through.
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Format Changes
The 2007 and 2008 season saw changes in the format for the competition with the NZRU opting to dump the previous pool system used the year before, instead going for a 10 week round-robin where each team will miss out on playing three of the other teams. The finals format was not changed however still staying with the quarter-finals, semi-finals and grand final.
