KEY POINTS:
It was a faintly dispiriting four-day weekend of matches in the national championship. And not just because the stars of USA, Italy and Japan have begun strutting their stuff on the global stage.
The most upsetting thing was the lack of upsets.
In a round when the prospect
of a genuine shock reared its head several times only to have it unceremoniously chopped off, the end result was a fairly sombre reality check.
The smaller teams, consisting largely of semi-professional players, just don't seem capable of sustaining the effort required to beat the big boys, stacked as they are with Super 14-hardened pros.
Sure, Northland and Tasman may have pushed Auckland and Waikato close but, when it came time to seal the deal, both minnows were simply gobbled up by the bigger fish.
Its predictability continues to be of the championship's biggest weakness.
The single most vexing question to emerge from round seven was: how the heck did Cory Jane's hair migrate to Jason Eaton's face?
The loss of his flowing locks didn't seem to harm the form of the livewire Wellington fullback as he danced all over North Harbour's grave. The appearance of the hirsute Eaton on the sidelines at Taranaki's Friday nighter, however, would have sent small children scurrying between their parents' legs - and left Bigfoot conspiracy theorists convinced they were right all along.
In fact, if Eaton had turned up sporting his new look in one of the more remote southern US states he would probably have been shot and mounted on the bullbars of a pickup truck.
Accepting the fact that Otago losing to anyone isn't remotely surprising these days, there has been just the one genuine upset in the 49 matches played to date.
That, of course, was Hawkes Bay's weather-assisted, Clint Newland-inspired round two victory over Wellington. Despite being suspended for the rest of the competition for KOing Neemia Tialata in that match, Newland was back in the headlines again this weekend.
Telling his side of the story for the second time - presumably the first time was at his disciplinary hearing - Newland revealed the provocation behind his "warning shot" on Tialata.
The All Blacks prop, apparently, had grinned at the unfortunate Newland, who went on to imply that the main reason the incident got blown out of proportion was Tialata's glass jaw.
"It was just a bit of a warning shot and I was pretty surprised it knocked him out, to tell the truth," Newland said.
He also went on to say that his family and supporters were sick of Tialata being portrayed as the victim.
"Tialata was being a pain and bulldozing us in the lineout," Newland explained.
"I told him twice to cut it out but he continued on and after the second time he pulled my arm around and I looked at him grinning at me. That was when I gave him the warning shot."
Some warning shot.
Presumably a serious thrashing with the corner flag would have followed if Tialata hadn't got the message first time around.
Newland also appeared bemused by the length of his ban. One can only assume the "he deserved it" defence didn't go down so well with the officials that sent him packing.
The other notable point from the weekend was the continued slide of North Harbour. Otago's draw with Manawatu in the Sunday game sent Harbour tumbling out of the top eight.
Harbour's current standing (or kneeling) in the game was epitomised by an incident in the second half of their heavy loss to Wellington.
Michael Harris, the 19-year old utility back who last year was plying his trade in schoolboy rugby, was left to make a one-on-one tackle on charging Lions lock Jeremy Thrush 5m from his own line.
Harris went low, drove hard and made very little impact as Thrush dragged him to the tryline. To his credit, Harris bounced back to score his first championship try in the closing stages of the match.
Collectively, however, such a reversal of fortunes looks a long way off at Harbour. They just have too many boys standing alone against grown men.
