Tries: C Clarke
Cons: K Morath
Pens: K Morath (2)

How wrong I was last week on two counts. First, there were more than three hundred-odd at the ground. I counted at least four hundred and thirty-six. Secondly, we didn't lose by 10 points, mainly because Taranaki were much more awful than I'd expected them to be. Nonetheless, it wouldn't be Harbour if we hadn't been made to shit our pants in the last 15 minutes. This situation arose courtesy of Taranaki finding hitherto untapped reserves of energy at the bottom of their murky gene pool barrel, and courtesy of some baffling decisions by Kelvin Deaker, who seems to have undergone the kind of concentrated off-season fitness regime that might have been dreamt up in a South Auckland pie shop. Both were ably assisted by our woefully out-of-touch halfback who conspired on several occasions to fuck up the most elementary clearing kicks, throw hospital passes at Tusi, and miss tackles. And the sooner he gets rid of his 'dummy-pass-off-the-back-of-a-maul-that-no-opposing-team-in-the-past-three-seasons-has-fallen-for' specialty, the better.

All told, but, it was a good effort by our lads. Our loosies - big fans and avid readers of harbourrugby.com following our kind words last week - showed up and did good things. They were largely responsible for our winning mountains of ball for the first 60 minutes. And so they fucking should. Our line-out was very good and it pains me to say that 'Band on the Run' McCartney worked well with genius Rawlinson. Fan favourite Dustow is still not getting a look-in with this squad which either suggests that he's rubbed someone up the wrong way, or he's being punished for moving to Bays. I'd understand if it's the latter, but he's surely he's served his sentence by having to play for their perennially under-performing first team for a season? Pivac showed some cobbles giving Afeaki another run and it largely paid-off, the boy holding up his end of the scrum and doing some good work around the park. 135-kg Afeaki was later seen discussing recipes with Kelvin Deaker, and then eating Kelvin Deaker.

Tuitavake was on Radio Sport during the week and in his inimitably polite way, told a besotted Otago fan who wanted him to move permanently to Dunedin, that he would rather skin, boil, and eat his own face before moving to that rain-sodden grey-skied shit-pit. His exact words were probably not "Harbour players who move to Otago have to, as part of their contract, undergo the sadistic ritual of receiving it royally it in the arse and that's not something I'm really into, thanks," but they should have been. Anyway, he picked up his act from last week, ghosted past his ineffective opposite, and scored our match-winner.

Tusi was up and down again. He made some good breaks, a couple of big hits, and some of the kicks that we've come to know and not love much at all. It was interesting to see the Wulfman at inside-centre; always felt that Tusi looked better there, and with Jack McPhee (He's Very Wee) playing out of position on the wing, wouldn't he be worth a run at fly-half? Then again, Pivac should be given credit for taking a successful double-gamble on McPhee (He's Very Wee) - playing him, and out of position: the boy's an explosive runner and a handy kicker. As soon as he went off, our goal-kicking range was reduced by about 20 metres. Georgie Pisi's defensive game has transformed of late. Having been cut in half by a Taranaki forward of indeterminate DNA , he got up and delivered some of his own medicine in the second half. According to the match programme, Georgie and Vili weigh 92 kilograms each…(pause to allow time to mop up the piss in your pants)…but that same programme lists Tusi as weighing only 5kg, so clearly they've both nicked some from him. 189kg between the three of them is more convincing.

Counties-Manukau next week. They've kindly moved the game to Mt Smart to save us from having to carry with us the gumboots, three spare tyres, replacement car stereo, and taxi chit that are such a necessary part of trips to that shit-hole of a ground that they usually use.