Positive v Negative...

Harbour were 10 points up in 10 mins, hard to believe but it was true, if it wasn't for some work at the breakdown we could have had more - a positive.

Botica had his kicking boots on and things were on the up, an opportunist run-away try was taken and converted - a positive.

Harbour were 19-10 up with 20 mins to go, game was in the bag mate - a positive.

Southland hit the front with 10 mins to go - a negative.

Southland laughed at us city boys and stole our game - a negative.

We talked last week of that feeling of inevitability and sadly it was much the same last night as Harbour threw away some very good work.

I'm convinced this losing streak, which looks set to continue, is largely mental and the fault of players not being accurate when it counts.

In patches we are magnificent, Botica who I thought would struggle to impress on the big stage, proved me wrong, 22 points is not a bad return by any standards.

Unfortunately we can not close out a game for love nor money and this is really the story of our season thus far.

Teams have worked out that if they front with 15-20 mins to go Harbour have already left the park, had a shower and are entertaining a team-mate's younger sister in the ASB Lounge. This inability to finish has cost us dearly and will continue to do so unless we can come up with some heart and muscle in the final stages of a fixture.

f I have to watch another pick-and-go 2 metres from the line for prolonged periods that results in a knock-on or turn-over I will move to league. We have to be more clinical in that area, we have to speed up the ball delivery and we need a couple of strong fellas to cross the line. Otherwise the sum of all efforts will amount to bugger all.

Filo Paulo or Filo Pastry as they were calling him offers nothing in the tight, if he wasn't pissing around in the backs he was taking a ball up and losing his feet like a drunken fool. We need honest grafters, not guys who fanny about looking for glory.

Looking at the home fixtures when they came out, it looked conceivable that if we could win most of those the season showed promise. That has now been flushed down the old swanny, and our season will be consigned to the history books as another one that looked good but failed to deliver.

When will we break this cycle of under achievement...let's help something can be salvaged before it is too late.