A devastated Steamers side was beginning season post-mortems two weeks early after crashing 28-7 to North Harbour on Saturday.

In a month, Bay of Plenty have gone from semifinal certainties to mathematical outsiders. With two games to go, against Manawatu and Taranaki, skipper Colin Bourke conceded pride was their foremost motivation for the last two games.

"It's not how we start, it's how we finish," Bourke lamented. "We have to prove it to ourselves as much as anything because we don't want to live off beating Canterbury and Wellington for the season.

"In the past, we were quite happy just to see how we went against those big teams but this Steamers side had a strong goal and a realistic goal to make the semifinals and you can see the disappointment on the faces that we haven't reached that goal."

Saturday's first-half rapidly evolved into some sort of tragic comedy. After a great start, with controlled phases taking the Steamers deep into Harbour territory, they suffered a catastrophic double-blow when wing Ben Smith and halfback Junior Poluleuligaga hobbled off with medial ligament damage to their left knees.

By the time Poluleuligaga's replacement, Josh Hall, hobbled off with an ankle injury after half an hour, Bay were already 18-0 down, and Harbour halfback Nalu Tuigamala - himself a late replacement for Chris Smylie - grabbed his second try soon after to make it 25-0.

Steamers centre Nigel Hunt was thrown into halfback and his rustiness showed, though it wasn't so much a capitulation from the Steamers as a state of shock.

You could almost see them blundering around the pitch, trying to shake the deafening roar of mortar-fire from their brains.

Harbour's three tries were slick but even their players seemed stunned when gaps started opening up and flailing passes stuck.

"When the pressure came on out there, we all got flustered and no one was thinking and we probably went a bit individual," veteran lock John Moore admitted. "By the time we woke up, we were down 20 points."

Moore shouldered some of the blame for the performance, criticising his own work at the breakdown, but that may be harsh. Along with fellow lock Culum Retallick - who rumbled over for Bay's only try in the second half - they were two of Bay's best players, along with fullback Toby Arnold and first-five Mike Delany.

What was missing was the seamless intent of early in the season.

"We're just not clicking as a team anymore," Moore said. "The effort's still there as you could see and we've tried to plan our season because this happened last year but I just don't know what it is mate. I just know it hurts at the moment."

The injury toll is bordering on disastrous. Poluleuligaga and Smith are unlikely to be fit for the next two games, while James McGougan's lingering back problems meant the Bay scrum again battled.

Tongan-born Tauranga Sports frontrower Henoa Lolohea became the 31st player used this season when he replaced Ted Tauroa late in the game, with the 31-year-old also becoming one of the oldest players to make his Bay debut.

Mount prop Scott Weir was 32 when he made his debut in 2004 against Counties-Manukau, although both players are some distance behind the oldest ever, Opotiki's Bernard Parkinson, who was 40 when he first played in 1931.

The good news is that suspended flanker Luke Braid will be available for the trip to Palmerston North this week, while utility back Nick McCashin may also be available.

That's unlikely to provide much solace, however, for a team that flew so high early in the season but is now in danger of losing its plumage entirely.