Harbour infict hard lesson [Nelson Mail]

The saving grace from Saturday's Trafalgar Park debacle is that the Tasman Makos get a second chance.

It clearly won't be their venue of choice, but at least Tasman's semifinal aspirations remain intact.

Instead of contesting this Friday's ITM Cup championship rugby semifinal against Otago in front of their home crowd, Tasman now head south to Dunedin's Forsyth Barr Stadium to take on the revitalised Razorbacks on their home turf.

And as much as they'd like to consign Saturday night's horrors to history, they'll also head to Dunedin with memories of their staggering 42-10 final round-robin loss to the previously winless North Harbour still lingering in their psyches.

The signals from inside the Tasman camp had pointed to a positive buildup and a side ready to deliver for their home fans. What they got was a lesson from a Harbour side committed to salvaging something from a desolate season. And they delivered on cue, Harbour smashing Tasman in a five-try onslaught that left players, management and local supporters in a state of shock.

Harbour were two tries up by halftime as they went to the break with a startling 20-3 lead. Sadly for Tasman, there was no way back as Harbour added a further three second-half tries, to a solitary strike by Tasman No 10, Hayden Cripps, that at one stage helped reduce the margin to 23-10. But it was Harbour who kicked on, confidently preying on Tasman mistakes to complete a comprehensive rout.

Central to Harbour's success was a superb defensive display that constantly shut down Tasman's attack. And when Tasman occasionally managed to breach Harbour's defensive line, with impressive No 8 Jordan Taufua, centre Kieron Fonotia and substitute winger Peter Betham leading the charge, Harbour's desperation eventually managed to shut them down.

Tasman coach Kieran Keane had previously expressed concerns about the threat posed by a potentially lethal Harbour team. And he took no solace in being proved right.

"It definitely was the banana skin, we didn't turn up," said Keane.

"Everything looked like it was in place and the preparation was relatively good actually. The [player] changes we thought were necessary, but unfortunately, we just played poorly and we didn't really resemble our team too much.

"North Harbour defended well because we didn't challenge. We didn't have any degree of sharpness that's needed to breach D[efence]. We made numerous line breaks . . . but it all went to nothing because it was all a little bit half pace and we never really challenged their line in my book.

"There were just a lot of guys out there that were flat and the batteries were only just half full . . . going through the motions." Harbour's first half tries, to pacey left wing Nafi Tuitavake and to lock Filo Paulo, were the result of clean line breaks by second five-eighth Francis Saili and centre Cory Aporo respectively, as Tasman's previously accurate defence was shredded.

Cripps' try 13 minutes into the second half proved a false dawn as further Harbour tries to substitute halfback Bryn Hall, simply latching on to a loose Tasman lineout tap from 40 metres out, to wing David Raikuna off an Aporo pop-up pass inside Tasman's quarter, and finally to big No 8 Vili Fihaki in the dying moments, left Tasman spectacularly outclassed.

Another key ingredient in Harbour's win was lock Chris Smith's lineout dominance which Tasman struggled to counter. It gave Harbour the option of kicking deep in the second half and relying on their accurate defence and Smith's ominous presence to keep Tasman on the back foot. Also critical was fullback Codey Rei's accurate goalkicking, Rei missing just one of eight attempts at goal, with his only miss hitting the upright.

Besides Taufua, hooker Quentin MacDonald also provided plenty of aggressive ball-carrying in Tasman's forward effort. And he echoed his coach's sentiments about the threat posed by a desperate Harbour side.

"We knew they were a classy team across the board and I guess they haven't had the luck all year," said MacDonald.

"So we knew if we didn't turn up, we'd get a hiding, and we did. The boys took a big punch there, so hopefully we can rebound for the semis next week. It's a big lesson learnt and we knew we were in for a big fight.

"That's the thing; we had a good buildup [but] we didn't capitalise on a couple of opportunities we had. They made two line breaks and [scored] two tries. We were up for it, but just a couple of mistakes here and there and a bit of brilliance by them and we let them into it, we just fell away."

As for Tasman skipper Andrew Goodman, he appeared stunned by Tasman's performance.

"There were a lot of errors, a lot of defensive errors," he said.

"We knew we couldn't give them a sniff or they'd be hard to put away, because they really wanted to finish their season on a positive note. We didn't take them lightly at all, it was just errors in our defence at the start and mistackles . . . They put a good [defensive] wall up all night, but we probably went away from what we were supposed to do on attack as well."

North Harbour 42 (Nafi Tuitavake, Filo Paulo, Bryn Hall, David Raikuna, Vili Fihaki tries, Codey Rei 3 pens, 4 cons) Tasman 10 (Hayden Cripps try, Tom Marshall pen, con) Ht 20-3.