At the start of the season, Te Puke Sports rugby prop Maurice "Mo" Broughton was known by his team mates as "10 minute Mo".
But now the hulking forward is being called "80 minute Mo".
Broughton was instrumental in his side's 37-20 win over Whakarewarewa at the weekend.
Last year's champions remain undefeated so far this season, and with the win secured first-round bragging rights in the PGG Wrightson Baywide.
Tipping the scales at 150kg and 1.82m tall, Broughton was giving his Whaka opponent Peter Smith a lesson at scrum time.
But the 33-year-old was modest about the work done in the deep, dark recesses of the scrummaging world.
"It's always pretty hard especially against these guys. You never know what's going to happen. One day you might win, the next day they may have it all over you, but usually it's pretty even."
But it wasn't only his scrummaging which got his team mates all excited - it was a 15m break Broughton made, showing off his electrifying pace and a stutter step most backs would be proud of. "It finally happened, one minute there were three guys in front of me the next minute there's nothing. I was wondering what the hell was going on."
Even his coach Craig Jeffries was singing the praises of the gargantuan prop.
"He struggled to get to training at the start of the year, so we left him on the bench and we gave him a hard time, [calling him] 10 minute Mo. But now he's know as 80 minute Mo. He's a good bugger, a genuine dude and just so powerful. In the final last year he basically turned the game. Now he's starting to really find his form now."
Playing in front of a parochial Whaka crowd at Puarenga Park, the visitors struggled to find any consistency in their back line play but outmuscled Whaka in the lineout and at scrum time.
With both sides riddled with injury, the first five minutes of the game looked like a season opener, with the ball resembling a cake of soap in a shower.
Jeffries said it was understandable the team's handling woes, considering he had to field four halfbacks - Andy Lee, Rameka Pohapi, Jamie Nutbrown and Ryan Wilson - in his starting XV.
"There's about five [regulars] out of our backline. So we're lucky to have numbers to fill the gaps."
It took Te Puke's inform first-five, Nick McCashin to post the first points of the game after Whaka were penalised in the seventh minute for lifting a man past the horizontal, during the tackle.
Te Puke, with a strong southwesterly behind them, were soon back on attack and had Whaka pinned inside their half for the next 10 minutes. But when ever the visitors looked dangerous, Whaka would stamp out any from of attack with aggressive defence.
Whaka were never going to lay down and submit to a team who have dominated the competition so far this year and the home side soon bounced back with a drop goal to first-five Maurice Stone.
But they were soon to loose the service of their openside flanker Liam Coleman who had a compound fracture of his left hand. Coleman was eventually taken to Waikato Hospital for plastic surgery to the hand and is in a stable condition.
In other matches around the region, Tauranga Sports managed to overcome a determine Rotoiti side at Emery Park 21-15, Te Puna continue their march up the table with a convincing 41-17 win over Waikite at Maramatanga Park, Opotiki came out on top in a close tussle with Mount Maunganui 15-6 and Rangataua grabbed their first win of the season in a nail-biter, 35-27 over Greerton Marist.