Tries: M Davu
Cons: J Huxley
Pens: J Huxley (3)

Lucky Luke continues his hot run of form!

Boy, it's never easy being a devoted supporter of North Harbour rugby and the weekend just passed provided a classic reminder of the trials and tribulations of supporting a team that continues to promise the world and generally deliver very little.

Returning to the drudgery of work on a Monday morning my working week invariably starts with me being asked the following question from numerous well-meaning colleagues who are well aware of my love and support of North Harbour rugby, "did you go to the game on the weekend?" After confirming my attendance at the latest North Harbour game using the standard weekly response, "yes, of course I did", I am then forced to face the requisite and dreaded follow up question, "so how was it?"

Now at first glance this may seem a harmless enough question from a work colleague who is courteous/nosy enough to enquire about my life outside of work but life is never that simple when you support North Harbour. I am always faced with an internal battle that requires a brief pause before answering such a loaded question with one of the two available options.

Option 1 is to choose to answer with one of the following brilliantly unimaginative, thoughtless replies depending on the result of the weekend's game: "it was great thanks", if North Harbour have won or "we didn't deserve to win/the referee robbed us/we were lucky they didn't score more/the rugby gods hate us" if we have suffered another nail biting loss. Any of these choices will normally halt this line of questioning and provide an opportunity to avoid further discussion on this topic. This is the easy option and is the best way to maintain your appearance as a highly valued and productive member of the workforce and a sane member of the community.

Option 2 is to tell the truth but this is fraught with danger as it commonly takes at least the first two hours of the working week to convey and may well leave the other participant(s) in the conversation convinced of your lack of mental capabilities. I will use the weekends' game against Northland to illustrate my point.

If I were to answer the dreaded "so how was it?" question by telling the truth it would be something like this.

"After reading the sports section of the Sunday papers and updating the points table on the harbourrugby.com website it was time to hit the road for our journey to the 'winterless north'. Of course, given that we live in NZ where the national highway is no more than a two-lane country byway and the Ministry of Works feels compelled to dig up the roadway every 40kms, the 158km journey to ITM Stadium in Whangarei took well over two hours.

North Harbour have an annoying tendency to play down to the level of the opposition but expectations of taking the maximum five competition points on offer were high as we contemplated taking on the winless and pointless Northland side and not even the ever-present rainsqualls or the freight trucks hurtling by a mere six inches from the drivers' door could dampen our mood.

Upon arrival at ITM Stadium we immediately felt at home. Just like being at a North Harbour home game the lack of support from the public meant that there was no need to purchase a ticket to the game in advance and there was ample parking within 250m of the ground.

As an aside, the one glaringly obvious difference was that all the 4x4 vehicles in the car park at Whangarei were covered in mud and it seemed as if they had been used to access difficult terrain unlike the 4x4 vehicles that can be seen at Albany Stadium.

During the warm-ups the Harbour lads looked well drilled and professional (pity this standard of professionalism did not show on the park) while the Northland boys looked as though they were about to have a game of touch rugby on the beach or as our local host put it "auditioning to join the cheerleading squad".

So the game kicked off.

Their Aussie import (please note I have no issue with imports in the NPC, I just wanted to point our why he looked so much better then the rest of his own team) kicked a huge 47m penalty goal, Lucky Luke kicked a penalty for us and after Rico Gear carved them up for the umpteenth time Tuitavake scored the first of our tries. Lucky Luke converted the try and at 10-03 ahead the Harbour boys switched off and waited for Northland boys to fall to their knees and beg for mercy. Unfortunately while we were attempting to run it from the shadow of our own posts and display our trademark 'no-look one hand miracle balls' the Northland forwards steamrolled over our pack, drove 25 metres and big Davu bagged himself a try.

Huxley kicked another penalty and then Junior 'turncoat' Gear latched on to a beautiful flick pass from Nick 'the traitor' Evans and proceeded to make Jared Going look very foolish by simply running around him and scoring a very nice wingers try. It only occurred to me once I was jumping for joy that both of these players will be elsewhere when next seasons NPC gets underway. My, isn't that Super 12 working wonders for the NPC teams that are not Super 12 bases - I wont elaborate on this point any further at this stage as it just gets me angry. Lucky Luke missed the conversion and then their guy kicked a penalty to give them the lead 16-15.

Tuitavake then scored his second try with a brilliant long-range angled run through 4 woeful defenders and although Lucky Luke missed the conversion, he then banged over another penalty. So without really trying, making one million unforced errors and bombing half a dozen try scoring opportunities we went to the break with a 23-16 lead.

Other than three very nice tries the highlight of the first half for me was when Tusi Pisi tried to chip the ball over the ruck and proceeded to kick the ball into the back of one of the Harbour forwards. When questioned about the referees' decision by the fellow sitting next to me, I explained that the scrum that resulted was from an accidental offside but the referee really should have awarded a penalty against Harbour for displaying such a complete lack of skill and talent.

Play recommenced and the North Harbour we all know and love (sort-of) played as only they can. There were knock ons, dropped passes, we ran into our own men once or twice and on numerous occasions we kicked the ball directly to their more than capable fullback or very quick Fijian wingers - and that was just the mistakes that Tusi Pisi made. I wish I could understand the reason a talented player like Andrew Mailei must sit on the bench and watch Tusi Pisi give his impression of the key stone cops but why Pollock insists on persevering with him is quite beyond me.

The second half was very, very average, the only highlight was the hi-jinks of the Northland mascot, the Taniwha. Whoever it is under the Taniwha costume they deserve our thanks. The Taniwha kept the crowd amused as they waited for the boredom on the field in front of them to finally end. The Taniwha showed just how poor our lame Harbour Master mascot is and while we may have won on the pitch we copped a hiding in the battle of the mascots.

The highlights of the second half were the Taniwha breaking the Northland sponsors sign into a thousand pieces, the Taniwha mooning Lucky Luck as he attempted a conversion, Tusi Pisi being replaced by Andrew Mailei and Joe Ward collecting our four try bonus point from a very slick lineout move.

It amazed me that a lineout that had malfunctioned most of the day could then provide us with another try as replacement loosie Francis Stowers was driven over by the rest of the forward pack. It probably means the boys will go away thinking the lineout was fantastic as it produced two tries and will forget about the rest of the day where we tried really hard to throw it to the Northland locks.

In the end we ran out comfortable 40-16 victors and secured the maximum five competition points.I know we should all be happy with this result but there comes a time when we need to develop a ruthless killer instinct and win games like these by 50 or 60 points.

We have raw talent in abundence. Perhaps we have too much raw talent - is that possible? We need to concentrate on the basics, improve our handling and develop our tactical kicking if we are to seriously challenge for the NPC title this season.

Otago visit the Stadium of Echoes this week and if you are anything like me you will spend the week wondering which North Harbour team will turn up this weekend - will it be the exciting unstoppable force that we see glimpses of each week or will it be the bumbling circus act that still rears its ugly head far too often for my liking? Who knows! The only way to find out is to get down to the park, see if you can grab a spare ticket, and join another bumper crowd of 6,500 there to witness the game first hand."

If you are still reading this report I thank you and I guess you can now see for yourself why it is usually easier to answer the dreaded "so how was it?" question with a simple "it was great thanks".