Frustrations continued for South Canterbury as they lost their third match in a row and continued to empty their trophy cabinet handing over the Phil Gard Memorial Trophy and the Bill Direen Memorial Cup after losing 32-29 to North Otago at the weekend.
While South Canterbury started better this week to have a try apiece and a 5-5 scoreline after 10 minutes, both teams had handling lapses throughout the first half.
But North Otago made better use of their opportunities to lead 22-5 just before halftime, when Sireli Masi added to his great season with another try to keep South Canterbury in touch.
The coaches must have had words at halftime as in the second half the South Canterbury team looked much more purposeful.
They put themselves in great positions to score, but the lineout became an issue as the ball failed to find any jumpers at three different times on the North Otago try line.
In fact, the only time that South Canterbury seemed to get it right was from long-range tries against the run of play after a North Otago error.
Dan Paterson scampered about 80m, and Masi 90m, to score at the other end.
It was only 15 minutes into the second half, and South Canterbury had fought back to tie the scores up at 29-29 and the good crowd of green and black supporters who had travelled to Oamaru started to believe.
Halfway through the half, South Canterbury had an opportunity to take the lead with a penalty, but the kick was wide.
While South Canterbury dominated at scrum time, North Otago continued to use a very effective rolling maul, sometimes marching 30m upfield and after a long period on attack were awarded a penalty for a head-high tackle with five minutes to play. The successful kick took them into the lead.
South Canterbury were a bit guilty of kicking the ball back in the final flurry, but a 50-20 kick did give them an attacking lineout. But again they failed to find any jumpers and North Otago were happy to hold on to the ball for several phases as they ran the clock down and secured a victory, their fifth in a row.
South Canterbury now have a must-win final round home game at Fraser Park, against Horowhenua-Kapiti, to ensure they make the Meads Cup playoffs.
Mid Canterbury have secured top spot regardless of their result against North Otago, but North Otago will need the win to make the playoffs while the other head-to-head matches may also give the winner a spot.
Realistically, seven teams are in with a chance chasing the three remaining spots this weekend, so bonus point wins and points differentials will all factor into the calculations, as well as wins over other teams.
Points Table
Mid Canterbury 35, Whanganui 26, North Otago 26, South Canterbury 24, Thames Valley 24, Wairarapa Bush 23, Poverty Bay 23, Horowhenua-Kapiti 21, King Country 10, Buller 7, West Coast 4, East Coast 1.
