Tries: C McIntyre, S Hamilton
Cons: C McIntyre (2)
Pen: C McIntyre

As I write this my palate's drier than the Gobi and my head feels like Satan has taken a steaming shit in it but never has a hangover felt so worthwhile. Yesterday, Pat's Garage, which at 7pm was as dead as any Shore pub on a Sunday evening, was by 11pm a big love-fest with free ale, our mighty heroes having done what any sane men would have by getting the fuck out of Skinhead Central as quickly as was humanly possible. Indeed, it took them just four and a half hours after walking off the park, to get back to civilisation and they might have got back even earlier had not the sheep-buggering Southern slack-jaw skipper spent 25 minutes delivering his turgid concession speech. Just hand it over, gimp, and less of the lip - there's hot, tanned chicks and latte-sipping metrosexuals in Takapuna waiting to get nude (and I'm not talking about the barnyard animal anticipation kind of nude).

Christchurch is never much fun, trapped as it is in a sort of tumbleweed land where bestiality, buggery, and oily incest sit easily with Hitler Youth and Asian-bashing. Rugby is pretty much all they've got down there which is why they're usually so good at it, apart from Caleb Ralph. It also means that they find it difficult to handle being beaten. Whilst we are quite used to the abject disappointment of having our souls ripped mercilessly from us by the cruel winds of fate and inadequacy, Cantabs tend to deal with defeat in the same kind of way that pathological psychotics deal with a few grams of P. God only knows what poor fate befell the handful of Harbour supporters who turned up to the Home for the Terminally Feral and found themselves swathed in the colours of the winners, but I think we can safely assume that Christchurch police are already in contact with the various next of kin and that we may have to wait some years hence for the victims' remains to be recovered.

So how in the sweet name of the Lord did we win it with around 35% possession and a bit more territory? Well, they were patently awful, which helped, but for the second week in a row our defence was miraculous. Nick Williams, Roger Dustow, and Adrian Donald stepped up to lead a rearguard action the likes of which Canterbury folk probably only see in their livestock in springtime. Our lineout seemed solid for much for the game; our scrums were always going to struggle against the kind of men who are born in city sewers and who crawl from manholes once a week to converge on Lancaster Park* to prey on the helpless and the innocent. If it was the moment of brilliance that we are fast coming to expect every week from George Pisi and Vili Waqaseduadua that ultimately won it for us, then it was the control that our pack had in the last four minutes that ensured the Shield would be heading for a quick delousing before taking pride of place (for a couple of hours at least) above the bar at Pat's Garage.

The aftermatch was a step back into the days of yore: Frano was there. So were Ozzie and Matua (who had come up from the Bay for the evening); some of the Harbour B boys took time out from their concerted programme of rigorous drinking to welcome the As in with a rousing version of Te Waka; Jonah and some chums set up shop in the corner of the bar and strummed out a few old classics; the Pisi boys grinned like Cheshires at everyone, although that might have been something to do with the RTDs; Luke - who'd had the worst game by a first-five in Harbour colours this year, but whose kicking of that last conversion meant that Canterbury had to go for a try at the end - sat on the pool table texting salary demands to Japanese and British clubs; Tony Woodcock leaned back and watched it all with a contented smile and unfeasibly large vessels of piss; Stu Wilson and his hair mixed and mingled; Mayor George took time out from battling against the blue and white Scum who would subsume our city into their own hotbed of seething gayness to press the flesh; and Rua (who will, please, not kick the ball any more) was Mr Sociability, lending an ear to any drunken old fucker who'd stumble over to spray spittle of gratitude in his face. That bit was autobiographical.

The media has in the past taken to tagging us the Cinderella men of NZ rugby. The bridesmaids. Games like the 9-9 draw at Onewa in the late 80s, the first-ever extra-time semi against Otago in the early 90s, the Battle of Onewa Domain in the NPC final of 1994, the botched Super 10 semi in the mid 90s, the 10 failed challenges - all these have been used, quite fairly, in evidence against our credentials. The chokers. The nearly-men. The little brothers. I'm not convinced that this will help to provide identity to our city. We have a hard-core base of about 100 fans and the rest are part-timers, cosseted by indifference, personal wealth, and alternative recipients of their 'entertainment' dollars. As we've said in these pages before, why go to the ground and get all cold when you've got a perfectly good big plasma wide-screen and leather recliner in the lounge? Perhaps with this partly in mind, The Herald has often shafted us with inadequate coverage so I suppose we should be grateful for their front-page spread. However, we might now, at least, get a few more people through the gates for next season's matches. Hell, they might even let us back into the open stand.

I like what The Dominion Post said: 'Happy 21st, North Harbour'. Pass the yardie.

* We know it's not called Lancaster Park but that we respect history and tradition rather than anodyne corporate affectations