Harbour beat a Highlanders-laden Dunedin side 36-19 at Watson Park to join the likes of Green Island and University as the early front-runners in the Dunedin division 1 competition.<\/p>\n
The Sharks\u2019 ranks were bolstered by the likes of front rowers Rohan Wingham, Soane Vikena, fullback Andrew Knewstubb and former All Black halfback Folau Fakatava.<\/p>\n
They had an impact, just not as much as you might have expected.<\/p>\n
The Hawks scrum was under pressure, but they were hungrier at the ruck and grabbed a series of turnovers.<\/p>\n
Hawks openside flanker Toni Taufa was abrasive, and No 8 Taylor Dale grabbed some crucial lineout steals and produced another gutsy effort.<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bFakatava failed to shine for Dunedin, but Knewstubb did look dangerous when he got the ball in space.<\/p>\n
But the Hawks’ first five, Rique Miln, who was limping around the field on a dodgy knee, outshone the professionals.<\/p>\n
He bagged two tries, drilled four conversions and a penalty for a haul of 21 points.<\/p>\n
Green Island turned a 22-12 lead against Southern into a monster 62-24 win at Bathgate Park.<\/p>\n
The Grizzlies missed the playoffs last season, but they are unbeaten in three rounds so far.<\/p>\n
University is also unbeaten. They pulled away to beat Zingari-Richmond 43-24 at Logan Park, while Kaikorai eased to a 56-19 win against Alhambra-Union at Bishopscourt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harbour beat a Highlanders-laden Dunedin side 36-19 at Watson Park to join the likes of Green Island and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-599580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}