• Auckland have recorded a well-earned victory, 38 - 10, this afternoon at Eden Park
• The Storm’s sister-act, Kiritapu and Ruahei Demant, were instrumental in the victory

Auckland thoroughly deserved their win today at Eden Park against a physical Wellington Pride outfit. Despite being made to work at times, the class of the Storm proved too much to handle throughout the 80-minutes, resulting in a comfortable victory come the fulltime whistle.

The early running went the way of Wellington with a simple set-piece move seeing them burst through the Auckland midfield on halfway and eventuate in the visitor’s being held-up over the line. The subsequent scrum saw Wellington knock the ball-on out wide and relieve the pressure on Auckland.

The next few minutes saw Auckland camped in the Wellington half, but stand-out defence from the Pride saw Auckland relinquish possession after multiple phases of relentless attack.

It wasn’t until 20-minute mark that the scoreless deadlock was broken. Auckland from scrappy ball at the lineout outside the Wellington 22-metre were able to regather and get on the front foot. The go-forward ball eventually proving too much with centre Ruahei Demant slicing through and neatly offloading to sister Kiritapu Demant in support to stroll over.

Wellington were off the mark soon after as well. After turning down easy points earlier in the contest, the decision was made to take the penalty and second-five Amanda Rasch made no mistake.

The blue and whites sprung back into the life off the back Wellington’s first points, with two quick tries in succession with little time left in the opening spell.

First, it was winger Lose Mafi who was able to exploit a narrow gap down the blindside by darting out of halfback to cross untouched. This was closely followed by Eloise Blackwell who was able to hold her width expertly and use the pass of halfback Kiritapu Demant to great effect to fall over the line from a metre out and close out the half in style.

The opening of the second-half was almost in direct contrast to the first. The Storm made all the running and were camped almost exclusively in the Wellington end of the field for the first 15-minutes.

The pressure, territory and possession all eventually told with Ruahei Demant busting through the Pride’s defence to record Auckland’s bonus-point try and extend the home side’s lead.

The blue and whites were in once again as the clock ticked over the 64-minute mark. The Pride looked to put a deft chip through, but were somewhat unlucky to see Auckland’s loosehead prop Cristo Tofa pluck the ball out of mid-air and unleash Isla Norman-Bell down the left hand side with a superb cut-out ball.

With less than 5-minutes to play the Pride were able to get over the line. After several phases of promising build-up play deep in the Auckland half, it was winger Bernadette Robertson who found a way through the blue and white wall to record their only try of the match.

Auckland were able to have the final say however, with reserve Saphire Abraham showing a surprising turn of speed to fly through the would-be Wellington defenders out wide and allow the home side to sign-off on a rather positive note.

Auckland Storm 38 (K Demant, L Mafi, E Blackwell, R Demant, I Norman-Bell, S Abraham tries; P Maliepo 4 conversions)

Wellington Pride 10 (B Robertson try; A Rasch conversion; A Rasch penalty)

Halftime: 17 - 3