A powerful first half performance saw Wellington home by 19-17 against North Harbour in Albany on Saturday evening.

Wellington made a brisk start, their forwards dominating the early exchanges and denying Harbour possession.After nine minutes, So'oialo broke from the base of a scrum on half way and fed Alatini with a good long pass. The former All Black stabbed a kick through the defence , Lomu ran on to the ball and enjoyed a favourable bounce. He powered over for only his third try of 2002.

Wellington fly half Riki Flutey was impressive in the early stages, a number of scything runs embarrassing the Harbour defence. After 17 minutes he raced past his opposite McAlister, to find Tana Umaga in support. He had just enough momentum to make it to the line. 10 minutes later , Flutey himself got the touch down, So'oialo having stolen a wayward Harbour line out throw to set up the scoring opportunity. Flutey converted both these tries to give himself a first half tally of nine points.

Harbour only had two McAlister penalties to show for their first 40 minutes, the late withdrawal of skipper Mark Robinson seeming to affect their back line fluency in the second quarter when they did enjoy greater parity of possession. 19-6 to Wellington at half time.

But they did not score again as Harbour came out with a different game plan. This was brutally simple : keep the ball amongst the forwards and drive it up the middle at every opportunity. Not pretty rugby, but immediately effective as prop Woodcock was driven over from two metres after a series of powerful drives. Unfortunately for Harbour, try as they might they could not repeat this manoeuvre again, all their pressure only leading to two further McAlister penalties. As a spectacle the second half disappointed, largely because referee Honiss wanted to make his mark on proceedings. Two needless sin-binnings late in the piece, Wellington's Waller and Harbour's Newby the victims, added to the stop-start nature of the game. As hard as Harbour tried they had , ultimately, to be satisfied with a consolation point for losing by such a narrow margin. On tonight's evidence they seem likely to finish mid-table. Wellington's play-off aspirations are still alive but they hardly seem good enough to threaten the likes of Waikato and Canterbury who played such a magnificent game earlier in the day.

Scorers :

North Harbour :17 : Try : Woodcock Penalties : McAlister ( 4 )

Wellington : 19 : Tries : Flutey, Lomu, Umaga Conversions : Flutey ( 2 )

Teams :

North Harbour : Hayden Reid, Anthony Tuitavake, Brad Miller, Mark Mayerhofler, Rodd Penney, Luke McAlister, Billy Fulton, Blair Urlich, Matua Parkinson, Troy Flavell ( captain ), Mark Giacheri, Matt Lord, Adrian Donald, Slade McFarland, Tony Woodcock.

Subs : Joe Ward, Tevita Taumoepeau, Andrew Gallagher, Craig Newby , Tim Walsh, Nick Evans.

Wellington : Christian Cullen, Brad Fleming, Tana Umaga ( captain ), Pita Alatini, Jonah Lomu, Riki Flutey, Jason Spice, Rodney So'oialo, Kupu Vanisi, Thomas Waldrom, Dion Waller, Ross Kennedy, Tim Fairbrother , Shane Carter, Kas Lealamanua.

Subs : Luke Mahoney, John Pale, Kane Thompson, Hemi Pou, David Holwell, Ma'a Nonu, Shannon P aku.