North's better side on show

Northland have pulled off a major upset at the Toro Golf Interprovincials by beating Waikato 3-2 to give themselves a faint hope of reaching the semifinals at the Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club.
The team's No1 Scott Wightman said it was the best result that Northland men's team had achieved in some years at the provincial teams' matchplay competition.
"We've beaten good teams in warm-up tournaments but we haven't been able to pull off a win over a big name side like this at an interprovincial - certainly as long as I've been around and probably a bit longer than that," he said.
Wightman and team No2 Brad Bonnington continued their solid form in the competition. They both recorded big wins while the team's youngest player, Kadin Neho, finally had his first win at the tournament.
And it couldn't have come at a better time.
"Kadin's really got a game and he proved it today, he's been really unlucky not to win a match before this. I think he's taken his last three games to the 18th hole - so it was good for him and us - that he finally got the result he deserved," Wightman said.
It also helped Wightman to settle some unfinished business with New Zealand representative Mat Perry, who was playing at No1 for Waikato.
"It was good to finally get some revenge on him after he beat me earlier in the year at the New Zealand Amateurs. He gave me a bit of a hiding so it was good to get one back on him," Wightman said.
He beat Perry 5/4, while Bonnington beat Aaron Leech 4/3and Neho got into the spirit of things with another 5/4 win.
Northland's No3 Brett Dormer and No4 Lee Neumann both had big losses on the other side of the ledger.
"It was a strange match because there were five fairly one-sided matches but we got on the right side of the match and it feels pretty good right now," he said.
The side weren't in the best of spirits after unexpectedly being beaten 3-2 yesterday by Tasman to severely dent their semifinal chances.
But Tasman have become the tournament "dark horse" after halving their match with Auckland on Wednesday and then beating the defending champion Bay of Plenty side yesterday.
"The loss to Tasman wasn't as hard to take as we first thought, because their form has really begun to stack up, and it was a lot closer than the result showed I think - if I had won the last hole we would have halved the match," Wightman said.
The side's final round robin match is against Taranaki this afternoon.
"If we can beat them and some of the other results go our way then we have a chance at reaching the semifinals and that was our goal at the start of the week," he said.
"We've already had a better tournament than last season with this win and even if we don't get the result we're after tomorrow, we've had a good interprovincial and we can hold our heads high," he said.
Hawkes Bay, Otago and Taranaki - names not usually associated with provincial golfing glory - are hoping their results on the last day will lead them into the semifinals on Saturday.
Hawkes Bay lead their division after yesterday's fifth round, while Auckland remain on top of Northland's division with three wins, half a point ahead of Otago, Taranaki and Tasman.
The disappointing Bay of Plenty could prove a major impediment as they take on frontrunners Auckland and Otago tomorrow, while the Manawatu/Wanganui-Otago and Taranaki-Northland could prove pivotal to the final playoff spots.