Table:
| Pos. | Team | P | W | B | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawke's Bay | 5 | 5 | 5 | 25 |
| 2 | Wellington | 4 | 4 | 4 | 20 |
| 3 | Tasman | 4 | 4 | 3 | 19 |
| 4 | BoP | 5 | 3 | 5 | 17 |
| 5 | Waikato | 5 | 3 | 4 | 16 |
| 6 | Taranaki | 4 | 3 | 3 | 15 |
| 7 | Southland | 4 | 2 | 2 | 10 |
| 8 | Otago | 4 | 2 | 2 | 10 |
| 9 | Canterbury | 5 | 2 | 2 | 10 |
| 10 | North Harbour | 4 | 1 | 5 | 9 |
| 11 | Northland | 5 | 1 | 3 | 7 |
| 12 | Counties-Manukau | 5 | 1 | 3 | 7 |
| 13 | Auckland | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 14 | Manawatū | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
Fixtures: Friday 06/09: BoP v Manawatū
Saturday 07/09: Auckland v North Harbour Wellington v Southland Otago v Canterbury Hawke's Bay v Tasman (Ranfurly Shield)
Sunday 08/09: Taranaki v Waikato Counties-Manukau v Northland
Wednesday 11/09: Otago v Wellington
Notes: The biggest game this round is the Ranfurly Shield match on Saturday night, Tasman have never one it as the combined union of Marlborough/Nelson Bays so they'll be up for it; and of course Hawke's Bay will be desperate to keep their winning record. Whoever wins gets both the log o' wood and top of the table.
Other than that, there's a couple of other usually fierce derbies. The Battle of the Bridge on Satuurday, then Otago v Canterbury. Most of the rest of the matches aren't especially exciting.
My Predictions: BoP 24+ North Harbour 9- Wellington 18+ Otago 3- Hawke's Bay 3- Taranaki 9+ Northland 9- Wellington 6+
spoiler
Well the Hawke's Bay v Tasman game lived up to the billing, hell of a match. Hawke's Bay had it won by scoring a late try and then Toala kicking an incredible side line conversion. Only to inexplicably try to take it back to 2010 and grind out ruck after ruck with 3 minutes to play around the halfway line.They needed to get a kick into the Tasman 22m and force them to try to run it back, but instead the inevitable happened and they gave up a stupid holding on penalty at 48m, which the Tasman replacement pivot kicked with metres to spare to take the shield off us.
Absolutely gutted.