Manukau City and Lower Hutt's Stop Out have made the most of kinder draws to win through to the last 16 in the Chatham Cup, while Papatoetoe joined them after upsetting Onehunga Sports away from home.
Stop Out, whose run through to this weekend's third round included two upsets over Central League opposition, faced fellow Capital League side Upper Hutt and claimed an enthralling 4-2 derby win largely thanks to a first-half goal rush.
A frantic opening five minutes saw Upper Hutt's Javier Montalba and Stop Out's Fisum Aden trade goals before Stop Out took the lead through 14-year-old Cherbel Kouchaba midway through the half.
An Alistair Yates brace in the last five minutes of the first spell had the 1956 Chatham Cup winners 4-1 up at the break but Luke Grindlay struck nine minutes before fulltime as the home side threatened to claw their way back into the tie.
Meanwhile, Manukau City are a far as they been in the Chatham Cup since a semifinal loss in 1987 thanks to Rhys Ruka's 82nd minute winner against fellow Northern League second division club Mangere United in a tense battle in south Auckland.
Northern League first division Papatoetoe claimed an upset 2-0 win over 10-man Onehunga Sports with late goals to Gerjeet Singh and Daniel Frank edging the tie after Onehunga missed a penalty and had a player red-carded in a horror five-minute second-half spell.
Waitemata could not pull off what would have been the upset of the round against Hamilton Wanderers but did make the Northern Premier League side work for their place in the last 16. Mark Jones' seventh minute penalty was enough for the home side - three divisions above Waitemata - to go into Tuesday's fourth-round draw.
Two of the three ties in Christchurch went the way of the home side with Western and Cashmere Technical each winning, although Dunedin Technical bucked the trend, netting two first-half goals to knock out Coastal Spirit.
The third round concludes tomorrow with another eight fixtures including a replay of last year's final between Wairarapa United and Napier City Rovers; an all-Dunedin clash between Caversham and Roslyn Wakari and a heavyweight clash between four time winners Central United and three times champions Waitakere City.
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