Hamilton’s a town that wants to be a city. One of those places that so desperately wants to be acknowledged as a cool place but tries so hard that it ends up looking like a really uncool place that wants to be cool. Where Paris sticks its Tour d’Eiffel or London its Benjamin Grande or New York its Tours Double (or not), Hamilton erects a couple with a baby, a dog and a cow – a suggestion as frightening as it is pertinent. Just where man ends and bovine begins is as shady an area as the back of the milking shed in that dark hour before dawn when dreams and reality, man and beast, merge. But monuments to inter-breeding of the species aside, the fact remains that they love their rugby down there almost as much as they love the warm, damp feel of a supple udder. Unfortunately, they’re a lot better than us at it, too.

Russell Jones once again declared in defeat (a la Taranaki pre-season) that he was happy with the commitment or pride or that we didn’t cave in or something. Harbourrugby.com does not share the coach’s view. If we were a scathing bunch, we might summon up enough vitriol to suggest that North Harbour on Saturday were pretty shite, but because we’re far more constructive than that let’s just say they were pretty ungood. We could have raised a half-ton of points in the opening 10 or so minutes but we decided that that would look far too much like winning so instead we scored a try then gave them the ball for the next 50-odd. Their rookie first-five outshone our own (although Luke was still pretty sound) and carved up the paddock like a share-milker with a rod-on. Indeed it was pointed out by one of our small but loyal travelling support that it seemed the only people in the stadium who didn’t realise that he was going to run it every time were our loose forward trio. Coincidentally, this same trio were the only people in the stadium who didn’t realise we were playing a drift defence. And our line-out was an abomination. Thankfully, we looked a lot better in every department when Flav came on and Sharky was on fire. I do love a bit of Shark (although not as much as he himself loves it). Our sevens’ stars played like sevens stars, throwing the ball around with abandon and generally forgetting that there aren’t quite the same spaces in the 15-man game for that dummy/cut/behind the back/between the legs/triple-scissors reverse pass. This meant that they looked for the most part like todgers.

The Waikato faithful were up to their usual pranks. Some poor creature with a bell, the size of which inferred direct inverse proportion to the size of his genitals, kept insulting anyone wearing anything remotely cardinal, with all the passion of a Fontera employee let loose on a springtime herd. We had the misfortune to be sitting behind a ‘woman’ (or something with a head and a couple of arms) who kept letting us know whenever they scored. 10/10 for enthusiasm but not for her application of Wella Mahogany to the strands atop her dome, one in three of which provided evidence of having been washed in water sourced from the part of the River near the Huntly power station run-off. The thing about the Waikato fans is that they’ve narrowed the sum total of their lives down to one thing: love of rugby. They’re a bit like those guys who used to spend lunchtimes in the library playing Dungeons and Dragons, which was all fine and well and good luck to them, but who would then start to believe that everything in their lives could be determined by the roll of a couple of 18-sided dice. Or like the guy in paedophile specs with twenty-nine copies of Militia and Weaponry magazine who’s standing in front of you in the check-in queue for your 93-hour trip to Upper Volta and who predictably is seated next to you the whole way through. They’re all fucking demented.

Big-ups to the bar lady from Taranaki at Biddy Mulligan’s – a most fine establishment and the only reason to stay in Hamilton longer than 80 minutes. She wanted us to win and she had great jugs.

Of beer. Arf, arf. ‘kato humour, maaaaaaate.