Tries: M James, L Raikabula
Cons: M James (2)
Pen: M James

Sketchy, but again enough balls to carry us through. There appears to be a bit ticker in this side, exemplified in the past few weeks by our defence inside our own 22. Past Harbour sides have by and large given up in this part of the field, preferring to f**k off back to halfway and let the opposition have their try.

For the past couple of weeks, though, there seems to have been a more steely resolve. The tall blonde lock who looks like he's spent the past two months in a hair salon might not be much cop at line-out time but his tackle is bigger than Linford Christie's and our scrum doesn't appear to be going backwards too often. Perhaps he's trying to impress middle-row mate Boric who for the second week in a row stepped up, despite the locale being a wee bit more modest than South Africa or Sydney. Manawatu at 5pm on a Saturday is the second-most boring place in the universe, behind Manawatu on a Sunday.

Some of the halftime stats were hilarious. Manawatu had 70% possession but only 40% territory. This is the kind of stat that we got used to at Harbour when Superboot-That-Wasn't Tusi was at flyhalf. Maybe apart from the possession bit. I could speculate what the Manawatu forward pack might have been saying to their backs at half time, but this is a family website so we'll just suggest that 'ball', 'the', 'kick', 'jerkoffs', and the present participle of a four-letter expletive occasionally used as an intensifier* might have been employed.

Our backs were leashed, perhaps understandably in light of the possession stats. A few holes here and some bigger holes there were plugged by scrambling defence and laughable Manawatu cock-ups. Vili Ma'afu, who was part of the ghostly triumvirate of loosies last year, has made big strides this year so Pivac deserves some credit for sticking with him. Of course, so barren are our stocks in the loosies department that there wasn't really any other option but to put him at 8 and pray to almighty God. There are obviously just enough Marist players in the side for those prayers to be heard as far away as the Vatican. (Indeed Pivac's surname hints at some Eastern European Orthodox / Catholic link so I wouldn't be surprised if he's summoning up a few spiritual reserves to sit incognito on the bench.) Chris Smith is doing some good things, too.

In advance of next week it should be noted that we have not lost to Canterbury in our last three outings against them. Granted, two of those games were draws - and the other was when Vili Waqa got some of his own divine assistance to steal us the Shield and detonate my pants - but I think that justifies our calling them our bunnies. We'll have them then puke them out.

*(That's 'f**king', for you illiterate, nouveau-riche Shore youth. Stop revving your exhausts, get your fingers out of Amber, and read some books.)