Kamo's returning Northland representative players inspired a mid-season revival with a bonus-point win over the Western Sharks on Saturday.
Coach Johnny Miller said the Sharks, fresh from an upset away win over Mid Northern last weekend, came at them hard in the first quarter but the experience of the repplayers helped hold the visitors out at the Kamo Rec.
"We weathered the storm thanks to those guys, they really made a difference and gave us the confidence we needed to go on and win the match," Miller said.
With stand-in skipper Matt Wallis leading from the front and loose forwards Cam Goodhue and Danny Mason returning to the side in time to help contain the Sharks' powerful ball runners, the pack had a very balanced look to it.
Miller also made some changes to the young backline for the match and was more than pleased with the way they turned out.
"We thought we'd try Mac Sykes out at fullback so we could inject his pace into the backline to good effect and that worked well," he said.
Sykes was replaced at halfback by Mason's brother James, who ended up earning the player of the day award.
Goodhue and Sykes scored first half tries to give Kamo a 17-3 lead at halftime before James Mason and Kurt Benny scored in the second to make sure of their third win in a row.
Although the Sharks couldn't repeat their heroics of last weekend, they never gave up trying and hit back with a couple of late tries to Tony Stokes and Willie Davies, to give some consolation to their travelling supporters.
Kamo still have the return of some injured players, including Bryce Williams, to look forward to and that should give them further belief that they can feature in the playoffs, despite their poor start to the season.
Elsewhere, the experience and polish of Mid Northern was enough to see them home in a close 35-22 win over competition front runners Marist at Kensington. The loss sees Marist drop to fourth with Mid Northern moving up into third.
Mid Western and Wellsford are now joint leaders after good wins on Saturday.
Wellsford were just too good for Otamatea at home in the Southern derby, beating them 33-3, while Mid Western overcame Old Boys 42-31 in a try-fest at Okara Park.
Hikurangi just got up to beat Hora Hora 13-12 in the final game of round eight to score their third win of the season.
