Rugby: Injury hits North Harbour

North Harbour's hopes of a major role from former All Black No 8 Ron Cribb in the upcoming ITM Cup provincial rugby competition took a setback this week when he was badly injured in Wednesday's practice match against Northland.

Harbour coach Craig Dowd said that Cribb, after having played well when he came on as a replacement, suffered a broken collar-bone in one of the last plays of the match.

Dowd said Cribb would be out for the first few matches of the ITM Cup, which starts for Harbour on August 1 against Auckland, but he was still hopeful he could recover to make a contribution at some stage of the championship.