Rugby: Shelford may wield axe after pathetic effort by Harbour

By Chris Rattue

North Harbour rugby coach Wayne Shelford fired some verbal shots at his senior players after the 20-21 defeat against Wellington at Athletic Park.

Harbour may have escaped from yesterday's second-round NPC match with a point, but they didn't make one.

Rather than build on the creditable draw against Waikato they were humbled by a Wellington side who had been torn apart at Eden Park a week earlier.

Shelford was nicknamed God during his playing days with the country's youngest union, but this was not a team performance in the image of its maker.

Whereas Shelford regarded every inch of territory as something to be fought over and treasured, his players reverted to frills and spills and were lucky to get within 20 points of the home side.

Shelford immediately hinted at selection changes, after just two NPC rounds.

"It starts with the senior players and some of them just aren't on top of their game," said Shelford, who mentioned Slade McFarland, Ian Jones and Troy Flavell in the same breath.

"They've got to look at themselves - you can't look at the young guys. Some of them are just a bit gun shy at the moment.

"The senior players have got to stand up and be counted and if they don't, they could be without contracts next year when the Super 12 positions are decided.

"We've got an aged backline there that never really strung anything together. I'll be telling them this during the week but they realise it anyway."

Shelford saved his only praise for replacements like forwards Manaco Tonga and Matua Parkinson, who threw themselves into what should have been a lost cause, although it wasn't because of Wellington's incompetence in finishing off their scoring chances.

Wellington should have had three tries in the first half, maybe even more, but were left with none because final passes such as the one fullback Colin Sullivan sent to left wing Ali Koko either went astray or were not taken.

They could also have engineered another to No 8 Filo Tiatia when they spent the middle part of the first spell camped on the North Harbour goal-line with a series of scrums.

It was not exactly pretty to watch, unless you were doing a thesis on scrums, and the Athletic Park crowd could hardly believe it when, after going through such agonies, Harbour somehow cleared.

Wellington led 9-3 at halftime but found themselves trailing by a point early in the second spell when Harbour prop Tony Coughlan rumbled over after a 15m run, following the visitors' first serious attack of the game.

So instead of holding a decent lead, Wellington found themselves in a contest that could already have been over.

If North Harbour had snatched a victory, it would have ranked up there with the miracles performed by that bloke so many years ago who could stroll across water and turn scraps of food into a graze for the masses.

It was not to be.

Wellington, with blindside flanker Inoke Afeaki the standout, kept their advantage and worked a good try from a scrum to Norman Broughton, and another to Tiatia from a goal-line scrum.

Even then, Wellington left the door ajar, with David Holwell missing the easy conversion to leave the score at 21-13.

North Harbour scored a 69th-minute try to McFarland, who barrelled into the left-hand corner after a sharp run from Rua Tipoki on the right, with Frano Botica converting from the sideline.

It led to a frenzied ending, with the crowd doing its best to influence referee Glenn Wahlstrom at every opportunity. Even the public address joined in, playing the theme song to Fair Go when Harbour were awarded a penalty.

But these consumers were left celebrating a Wellington victory that will help restore some self-belief after the first-round drubbing by Auckland.