England, Blighty, PommieVille... no matter what you call it, its a long long way from the Green and pleasant land of the Mighty BOP. It's a hard road keeping track of BOP's progress from the other side of the planet I can tell you. But thanks to livescoring on the mafia forum, and sky UK showing a game from the Air NZ cup every week... I am sure us poor exiles just about manage to keep up. This year they showed the Bay vs Harbour and Bay vs Taranaki. Not too sure about how many 1/4's they will show. Havent seen Counties, Manawatu, Hawkes Bay, Northland or Southland at all.... so I consider the sending of a horses head to the SKY head office an unmitigated success!

Congratulations to North Harbour and Captain Rua Tipoki on lifting the Ranfurly Shield off Canterbury at the weekend. No disrespect to the big two intended, but based on 2004 experience it's brilliant to see the Shield somewhere outside of Canterbury or Auckland. Enjoy reading about the celebrations over at http://www.harbourrugby.com. Good work Rua on being in two Shield winning teams in just over two years!

I wonder if we can get a challenge in early in 2007. For the meantime a win over Manawatu on Thursday night will do...

The Good:
1. Jamie Nutbrown: the next BoP All Black
2. Murray Williams looking more confident at fullback
3. Dominating possession and territory in the first half into the wind
4. Our scrambling defence
5. ANOTHER WIN!

The Bad:
1. Tackling too high and ineffectually

The Ugly:
1. Colin Bourke. Mucking around in the in-goal and blowing a try. Just plain dumb.  
2. ANOTHER yellow card (Colin Bourke) for a Steamers loose forward...
3. The second half. Tonu'u asked Ben Castle in the after match interview about us stopping playing rugby in the second half...

The score:
Bay of Plenty 23 (Nutbrown, Tahana tries. Delany 2 conversions and 3 penalties). Tasman 17

First win for the Steamers this season with a 33 - 15 win over Manawatu. (Half time: 33-8)

Bay of Plenty 33
Charles Baxter: 2 tries
Jamie Nutbrown: 1 try
Mike Delany: 3 conversions, 4 penalties

Manawatu 15
Crosswell try, penalty try, Bambry penalty, Smith, conversion

Match reports to follow.