North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Tevita Li bags five against Taranaki
The twinkling boots of North Harbour wing Tevita Li were too quick for an understrength Taranaki side, as he equalled the union’s try-scoring record in a big Mitre 10 Cup victory at Albany.
Li raced away for five tries in Harbour’s 64-33 win on Sunday, equalling Glenn Davis’ haul against Poverty Bay-East Coast in 1999.
Since the national provincial competition was revamped in 2006, Harbour’s best try haul in a match was three, twice, by Matt Luamanu.
At the conclusion of the Mitre 10 Cup regular season, Li leads the competition in try scoring.
Li is on 11 tries with Canterbury wing Braydon Ennor second on 10 tries and Otago Jona Nareki third on nine tries. With seven tries this season, Shaun Stevenson is the other North Harbour player in the try-scoring top 10.
Time will tell if Harbour get any benefit out of their final round robin match against a seriously weakened visiting Taranaki team.
Taranaki opted to send what was effectively a B side north and while it benefited Li, the hosts were not given a massive test ahead of their premiership semifinal against Canterbury early on Saturday evening.
While North Harbour’s frontline were having what was effectively a training run at times, the vast majority of Taranaki’s first choice XV were at home having the weekend off before they host Tasman in the other semifinal on Saturday night.
Just how much confidence North Harbour take out of the match remains unknown but they at least got to try out some moves ahead of their trip to Christchurch.
North Harbour 64 (Tevita Li 5, Bryn Hall, Shaun Stevenson, Matt Duffie, James Parsons, Matt Vaega, tries; Ben Volavola 5 con, Todd Dolan 2 con) Taranaki 33 (Ciarahn Matoe 2, Declan O’Donnell, Jared Proffit, Adrian Wyrill tries; Matoe 4 con). HT: 33-19.
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On Sunday, Harbour Hibiscus played second placed Otago Spirit in the Farah Palmer Cup championship division and lost 15-34 at QBE Stadium with tries to Claire Erasmus, Caitlyn Cox and Sophie Fisher kicking a conversion and a penalty. Semi-finals are on October 21 with the Hibiscus travelling to Dunedin to face Otago again for the second versus third semi-final.