Harbour beat Counties in tight opener

North Harbour got their national rugby provincial championship season off to a superb start with a 20-17 win over Counties Manukau on Thursday night.

For a championship side that’s struggled for the past few years, it was a big achievement to defeat a premiership team in this crossdivision contest.

There was little between the two sides for most of the match, but Harbour were able to make the most of their opportunities and all the signs point to Steve Jackson having assembled a well rounded team in his third year in charge of the province.

Counties are usually known as the team with one of the best backlines, but it was the likes of Harbour’s Matt Vaega, Michael Little, Matt Duffie and Bryn Gatland that stole the show.

There were 12 players on debut for Counties and four making their first appearance for Harbour, with one of them being the experienced fullback Duffie, who a year ago was running out for the Melbourne Storm in the NRL.

And it was Duffie who put through a Cooper Cronk-like grubber kick in the fourth minute behind the Counties’ defence that Afa Fa’atau was first to, for the opening try of the season.

In the 12th minute Counties first-five Piers Francis suffered a knee to the head from a Harbour player and walked groggily from the field.

In his absence, fullback Joe Reynolds kicked a penalty for the Steelers and the Blues playmaker return to action 10 minutes later having passed the concussion test.

As the half went on Counties began to dominate the forward battle and from a scrum close to Harbour’s line Counties played a couple of phases before Jordan Taufua crashed over.

Seven minutes before the break Counties wing Sam Vaka was sin binned for holding back Vaega when he was chasing a ball beyond the Counties goal line, but Harbour couldn’t capitalise from a number of close range attacks and their only reward was a Vaega penalty, which levelled the scores to 10-10 at the break.

Early into the second half Gatland, son of Wales coach Warren, kicked a penalty to put Harbour back in front and the lead was extended when Little grounded the ball in goal after Sam Vaka failed to.

With seven minutes left Sione Faletau bundled his huge frame, and the ball, over from a metre out to put Counties back in the game. They got close to Harbour’s line in the final minute, but gave away a penalty at a breakdown, to concede the contest.

Counties will host Bay Of Plenty in their first home game of the Mitre 10 Cup this Sunday at ECOLight Stadium on Counties Manukau club day.

The game will kick off at 4:35pm.

North Harbour 20 (Afa Fa’atau, Michael Little tries; Matt Vaega con, pen, Bryn Gatland pen, con). Counties Manukau 17 (Jordan Taufua, Sione Faletau tries; Joe Reynolds pen, Piers Francis 2 cons) HT: 10-10.