Pirates winger Romeo Tiatia spots the gap on his way to the tryline in his side's win at Spriggens Park on Saturday.
Black Bull Liquor Pirates secured their Top 4 position for Tasman Tanning Premier at the end of the first round, but they will have a lot of work to do to maintain it after an erratic 36-15 win over Utiku Old Boys at Spriggens Park on Saturday.
After a decent first half with some good attacking combinations, where Pirates would drop intensity after each try and allow Utiku back on the charge, the match fell apart as a rain moved through during the third quarter and the discipline slipped worse than the ball handling,
Five yellow cards were issued, four of them for Pirates.
Play became bogged down and barely moved from Pirates own 30m zone, although Utiku struggled to hang onto meaningful possession and could not string the phases together, even when facing 14 men, while the home side would lose a sinner just when the last one was coming back like some bizarre conveyor belt to their own goal posts.
Pirates would eventually work their way free to add their sixth try, while the match was called off with a few seconds still remaining after fresh Utiku reserve Sam McKay took a nasty head knock when falling in a tackle.
Pirates coach Phillip Morris acknowledged his side didn't put their minds back on the task after scoring points, unlike the week before against Harvey Round Motors Ratana when they kept playing as a team to get 10 tries.
"We got too fancy, loosened up.
"But the first round is putting yourself in position, and we've done that.
"It's all there - it's just a matter of keeping the foot on the throat when we do something."
The loose forwards in Manulua Lafi and Tafulu Isaake were dominant with some powerful surges across the park, while big midfielder Soonalote Tauailoto still has that deceptive speed and caught Utiku out several times.
However, with Fa'alele Iosua already on stand down for three yellow cards, it had to concern Morris to see lock Matt Thompson, prop Tolili Moala, centre Junior Ainea and reserve Leti Manutulila all marched by referee Sam McKnight.
"We might as well train with 14."
Utiku were also temporarily without prop Josh Haywood after he traded punches with Moala, but of bigger concern to coach Matt Gilbert was the knee injury to lock Mark Farrell and McKay being knocked out.
"To be fair, that's probably the best we have played at Spriggens in a little while," he said.
"Just those little errors. The territory we had and possession, we weren't lucky enough to put on more points."
While his side could not put it together against 14-man opposition, Gilbert pointed out the constant comings and goings meant changes at scrum time and robbed the match of any flow, which didn't help his team either.
"It does change the game because it was 15 minutes of just dealing with rubbish.
"They scored 2-3 from wide out and that killed us."
Fullback Karl Farrell did his best on attack while winger Saia Teumohenga showed glimpses of the speed, but Utiku dropped off far too many tackles and made a mess of the ruck during the first half, which kept them out of contention.
After both sides were stopped at the tryline in the opening exchanges, the match came alive in the 16th minute as Lafi latched onto an attacking grubber kick and spread the ball wide to prop Raymond Epati, who found Tauailoto and then winger Romeo Tiatia pumped the legs to carry two tacklers over in the far corner.
Moments later, Isaake punched a hole from the kickoff and fed Tiatia down the same touchline, with his inside pass being claimed by lock Reece Dix, which was popped up to halfback Denning Tyrell, who despite being in-goal just casually handed it to Thompson to put down.
Pirates then got cocky as the ball spilled from an attacking maul and Utiku lock Sam Stratton went down an unguarded blindside, popping a great pass in the tackle to Teumohenga, who was not going to be caught on a 65m run to the tryline.
A long pass by Utiku halfback Ra Broughton set winger Emori Lodoviko on a good run, and the visitors got a penalty for second-five Max Navas to close the gap to 10-8, before Tauailoto sold the defence a big dummy and dashed off to score under the posts and complete the 10 minute burst of scoring plays.
With Mark Farrell limping off, Pirates worked forward to get a tap penalty with Tauailoto combining with Tiatia out wide to send Manulua Lafi right to the tryline.
Utiku were stretched so when Tyrell came back the other way his long pass to winger Siulagi Lafi left plenty of room to scoot into the corner.
The visitors had chances to reply before halftime but lost the ball on each occasion, and then the home side started the second stanza running hot as Ainea, fullback Tupu Ulufale and Manulua Lafi dealt the ball between them for Lafi to power his way over for 29-8.
But the less said about the next 20 minutes the better as Utiku camped inside Pirates half but could advance the ball to the line, with players being ejected from the contest with monotonous regularity.
Finally in the 57th minute, Karl Farrell backed himself as first receiver from a 10m scrum and dove through his marker to narrow the gap to 29-15.
But Utiku were destined to get no closer as Moala looked to redeem with some solid runs, and when back on attack, Tiatia worked with Ulufale to nearly score, before Pirates drove forward and No8 Mene Taufa'asau dived over the ruck to get the try.
Pirates 36 (R Tiatia, M Thompson, S Tauailoto, S Lafi, M Lafi, M Taufa'asau tries; J Ainea 2 con; T Ulufale con) bt Utiku Old Boys 15 (S Teumohenga, K Farrell tries; M Navas pen, con). HT: 24-8.