Rugby: Tuioti-Mariner earns Blues contract

Gerard Tuioti-Mariner is unsung, unheralded, but not unnoticed. Photo / Getty Images.

Gerard Tuioti-Mariner is unsung, unheralded, but not unnoticed.

The 23-year-old North Harbour lock is one of the best every week for the struggling ITM Cup Championship side, and now his hard graft and ability to pull down plenty of lineout ball has won him a Blues contract.

Tuioti-Mariner was not keen to talk too freely about the Blues ahead of next month's full squad announcement, but he did have a taste of Super Rugby when he was called in as training cover in June.

It's a fair rise for the former Massey High and Kelston BHS second-row, who has hacked away in North Harbour premier club rugby with Massey (winning the championship in June) since his school days, playing for the union Under 20s and Bs up until last year. It was no coincidence that North Harbour won in each of his first three games of 2014. His ball-winning at No 2 in the lineout, his attitude and work-rate have been hard to fault since then, and he has won the third most lineouts in this ITM Cup, with 37.

"I'm loving it. Individually I'm happy with how I'm going. We just need to get the results," said the softly-spoken Tuioti-Mariner, who has struck up a good second-row partnership with the veteran Hayden Triggs. The younger man says he has learned a heap on and off the field from the Maori All Black.

Like all followers of North Harbour rugby, Tuioti-Mariner knows that inconsistency has been the side's bugbear in 2015, patches of good rugby interspersed with errors and poor decision-making, exemplified by Saturday night's 31-17 defeat to Manawatu.

"We've got to be more consistent, 1-23. We need to front for the last 10 minutes of the first half and the first 10 of the second half. We have to get up for Otago on Thursday night, because they'll be gunning for us."

Harbour coach Steve Jackson, a former Massey club lock himself, has taken real pleasure in seeing Tuioti-Mariner's rapid progress over the last 12 months, and says he is a shining example to others in the squad of the rewards if you apply yourself in ITM Cup.

"I'm rapt for him to be in the Blues. He's a good ball carrier, runs hard, good lineout forward and its hard in the collisions. He doesn't say too much, but he does a lot with his actions. He's a good man," said Jackson.

Now Tuioti-Mariner needs to give more of the same against Otago at home tomorrow night to help hand his team a Championship semifinal lifeline. That will be his 14th game for the union, just one short of a blazer that will be richly deserved.