Just when we thought kayaker Aimee Fisher had the 2018 Hawke's Bay Sportsperson of the Year award in the bag along comes rugby league star Tohu Harris with a first for the province.
While Fisher, who already has two junior world championship golds and a senior world championship bronze on her CV for the May awards, Harris, who is expected to be named in the Kiwis World Cup squad tomorrow, could push Fisher close if he plays as big a role in a World Cup win in December as he did in the Melbourne Storm's 34-6 demolition job on the North Queensland Cowboys in Sunday night's NRL grand final win in Sydney. Even if the 25-year-old Hastings Boys' High School product misses out to Fisher he is still the first Hawke's Bay player to capture a grand final winner's ring.
"Tohu is definitely our first. I never thought I would see it in my lifetime as you only dream of these sort of things," a jubilant Rugby League Hawke's Bay historian and former Hawke's Bay Unicorns player, Ngavii Pekepo, said yesterday.
"It's the best game I've ever seen and Tohu performed so well in it. The fact seven Storm players made the Aussie team for the World Cup is an indication of how great that side was and I would love to see Tohu's ring at some stage," Waipukurau Rams stalwart Pekepo added.
Warriors-bound Harris, who played in his second consecutive grand final, was the top tackler in the match with 43 and, despite having two spells, made 113 metres on the carry, 12 more than fellow Kiwi and Cowboys enforcer Jason Taumalolo who cracked 235 metres in a couple of matches earlier in the season.