Tries: S Stowers, T Paulelei,
DJ Forbes, L Masaga
Cons: D Cummins (3), K Koiatu

The NZ Herald summed it up nicely for me when they said:

"Harbour especially have to be asking questions about why they left their best performance until it was too late".

Those who have supported the Union for a few years will come to recognise this as a bit of a reoccurring theme. A team which was more than adequate on paper, seemingly leaving the best for last ... surely not!

Teams not fancied at the start of the competition seem to put in gutsy performances, play for their team-mates and have a just a small slice of respect for their respective regions. Harbour wander about a bit, stumbling and fumbling hoping the answer will appear and then sadly falling down mountainous crevasses at inopportune moments.

Putting all the pent up anger and frustration to one side, it was a very good performance from Harbour. With no pressure and with the timely return of our All Blacks, we injected some real pace and flair into what was largely tipped to be a rather boring affair.

The Tuitavakes and Gopperth were simply brilliant. Any day Harbour score eight tries is bound to be a good one and if it wasn't for the fact that this was the end of our 2008 campaign; we would all be winging our way to the Poe for a celebratory round of back-slapping and chocolate RTDs. Instead we all watched it at home like the rest of our City, drinking reasonably priced bottled-beer from Foodtown, communicating with our kids through the Vodafone network and hoping the car was still in the driveway.

You can't underestimate class and ability and I thought Gopperth had his best game of the season. If he had kept this level of consistency the whole way through things might have been a little better. Anthony showed why he will be off to Hong Kong in a few weeks and was a genuine threat in the midfield. Nafi followed in the family footsteps displaying why he also will go further in the game.

The forwards for once were not terrible. Whether they were swept along by the backline's enthusiasm or in Hinchco's case, the prospect of Mad Monday at the Devonport Bowling Club - who can say? A good end to a forgettable season and I wish I could write more but I just can't be arsed.

So here we have it, an end of another forgettable chapter in Harbour rugby. Pivac jumped before being pushed, the team "wallowed in a pit of mediocrity" and the Union board seem about as proactive as ever. What the future holds is anyone's guess but I suspect time is running out for Harbour to find the "magic ingredients" to get some form of on-field stability. The NZ rugby future looks uncertain for provincial unions who can't deliver a sustainable/progressive entity for its constituents and North Harbour is very much in this category.

The players also have to take their fair share of the blame and some of them as in previous season's are just not up to the job. We keep substituting our hooker and halfback when these key positions should never be in doubt. We still have yet to find a loose-forward trio which competes and at the same time show a distinct disregard for self-preservation. Yet the club scene is good, the Development XV is very good, so the answer must not be too far from the front door.

What we need both in the boardroom and in the coaching/management department is real, accountable leadership. The next "Head Coach" doesn't need to be a real coach in the true essence of the word. He or she needs to be a man-manager of real authority and ability. You can have all the specialist coaches you want but the "top-dog" must be someone that can galvanise a team into one. If you look around the world, in different sports it are those professionals (past and present) who get the best results, i.e. Joe Torre, Bill Shankly, Alex Ferguson, Vince Lombardi, Brian Lochore, Jock Stein, Chas Ferris ...

My real hope is that we don't have another season of bollocks. Two years are enough, if Taranaki, Tasman and the likes can keep going in October then we should too. The only positive out of 2008 was that Auckland failed to make the top eight in their 125th anniversary ... priceless.

See you in 2009 ...