Change of focus gives Harbour a tougher edge

By CHRIS RATTUE

There is a familiar look to the NPC table halfway through the season - but for one small point.

Atop the Canterburys and Aucklands of this rugby world stands North Harbour. For the moment, the top team in the land. Surely not.

North Harbour's history is full of ifs, buts and maybes. High on promise, short on delivery. One week, the best thing since sliced bread - the next week, just a few crumbs of comfort for their fans.

But five wins in a row suggest that something has changed at North Harbour, who have never won the first division title or the Ranfurly Shield.

Already, Waikato, Auckland and Canterbury have been dealt to. This is not the Harbour of old, although no one around the Albany headquarters is beating the drums of celebration yet.

This Saturday night, they play Taranaki - the team who dealt them out of the semifinals hunt last year, aided by a typical North Harbour surrender.

"I know people such as Wayne Smith get criticised for talking about one game at a time," Harbour chief executive Doug Rollerson said, "but that is all I can think about at the moment. I'm very nervous about this game.

"Maybe if we win that, we can start talking about some promotion involving the semifinals."

When Rollerson took over at North Harbour four years ago, they were $600,000 "in the hole." Now they are $500,000 to the good.

"We were struggling to retain our first division status."

Rollerson said increased sponsorship had been achieved through hard work, the dedicated support of players such as captain Mark Robinson, and the profile of their increasing number of name players.

As is often the case in sport, stability off the field leads to consistency and success on it.

Rollerson a former All Black, picks out three key aspects in this year's success so far.

First, the return of old hands Frano Botica, Liam Barry, Mark Mayerhofler and Glen Osborne has provided a core of hardened lieutenants for Robinson.

Second, players such as Tony Woodcock, Willie Walker, Blair Urlich, Craig Newby and Matt Lord are delivering after coming through development systems.

Third, the New Zealand Rugby Football Union have listened to the pleas of non-Super 12 base unions and provided some money to try to balance the battle.

North Harbour received $70,000 which allowed them to have a fulltime manager, Russell Jones, and enabled coaches Wayne Shelford and Allan Pollock almost fulltime roles for tactical analysis and one-on-one sessions with players.

There have been other significant repair jobs.

The union and the trust running North Harbour Stadium were once at loggerheads, and the team struggled to even train on the main ground. Now, weekly meetings sort out a schedule.

"We are still semi-professional, but we are closer to how the Super 12 bases operate," Rollerson said.

But without the wealth and influence of Super 12 bases, Harbour still operate by hook or by crook.

They have encouraged players to develop by joining rival Super 12 franchises (such as Ron Cribb to the Crusaders) even at the risk of losing them permanently.

And they have helped others like prop John Buchanan, who played in Japan, to turn out overseas to compensate for North Harbour not being able to pay them big money.

So what about on the field?

Captain Robinson pinpoints a change of attitude through each week as the difference between the Harbour of now and old, allied to a tougher attitude which does not rely on hit-and-miss flair.

Shelford and Pollock had complained at times in the past that game plans were being ignored by their flamboyant players.

Robinson said: "If you prepare well, you play well.

"We are focussed now on analysing opposing teams and executing what we have to do.

"There are more senior players here this year who have helped with that.

"In the past we only clicked later in the week to what we had to do.

"Now the players are really buying into what we have to do at the beginning of the week."

It is still too early for North Harbour fans to be counting their chickens. But this time around, they will have more confidence that these eggs will hatch.