The Steamers now have to repeat their 2004 Ranfurly Shield heroics against Auckland on Sunday to make the top-flight of the next round but realistically they'll be chasing cannon-fodder all over the country to sneak in the back door in the quarterfinals.
That campaign will start the week after Auckland, when they host lowly Manawatu _ smashed 43-0 by Tasman on Saturday _ in Rotorua. It's a game of double importance _ hopefully it will allow the mis-firing Bay backline to run itself into some sort of form.
``Hopefully when we play the other teams, we may be able to develop a bit of momentum to make sure we're in that quarterfinal,'' Steamers coach Andre Bell admitted.
Aside from the injury returns of Aleki Lutui and Colin Bourke, the forward pack doesn't have a lot to worry about. They beat up their Harbour opposites into the wind on Saturday, as the Steamers trailed just 3-0 at the break.
But an hour of quality disintegrated into a final quarter of custard for the Steamers backs, who leaked two quick tries to talented Harbour fliers Viliame Waqaseduadua and George Pisi.
First-five Murray Williams is the one most in need of a confidence injection, shaky in his kicking and wobbly in his passing, and replacement midfielder Rena Schuster missed a couple of glaring tackles and had a kick charged down which let in a try.
Hayden Reid was beaten on the outside at least twice and when left-wing Anthony Tahana got his hands on the ball after 21 minutes, it was the first time all season he'd been allowed a proper run at the opposition.
Harbour captain and former Steamer Rua Tipoki, who made a triumphant return to the field after a 16-week ban, was generous with a bit of free advice for his ex-teammates.
``Cory Aporo got some really good go-forward especially on those one-two cuts and they're only going to grow in confidence if they stick together,'' Tipoki said.
 Tipoki said his side hadn't panicked at halftime, knowing that with game-breakers like Luke McAlister and Anthony Tuitavake in the side, they just needed to tweak their tactics.
``We might have relied on the wind too much _ we've got an exciting backline and we really didn't use it at all in that first half.
``We weren't too worried _ we knew keeping it in the hand into the wind in that second half might not be a bad thing with our backline.''
 By the time Harbour replacement hooker Roger Dustow bumped over for their third try with 10 minutes left, it was too much to take for large sections of the loyal Blue Chip Stadium crowd, who voted with their feet and, like Elvis, left the building.

With thanks to the Bay of Plenty Times