Ten tries in four games: Kyren Taumoefolau is having a season people will remember

Some seasons you watch a winger and think, that is a good player.

And then occasionally you watch one and have to go and check the record books, because you are not sure what you just saw is allowed.

Kyren Taumoefolau has scored ten tries in four NPC games.

The four weeks

| Opponent | Tries | |---|---| | North Harbour (round one) | 3 | | Counties Manukau | 5 | | Southland (round four) | 2 | | Four matches | 10 |

He opened with a hat-trick against North Harbour in round one, which on its own would have been a good week's work.

Then he scored five in one game against Counties Manukau. Five. That equalled Terry Wright's all-time NPC record for tries in a match and broke Tasman's own record in the process.

And then, in case anyone thought it was a one-off, he backed it up with two more in Tasman's 46-17 win over Southland at Trafalgar Park.

Why the number is so big

Ten tries would be a very good full NPC season for a specialist finisher. Plenty of quality wingers never get there across a whole campaign.

Taumoefolau has done it in four matches, and he has already broken Tasman's single-season record while there are still rounds to play. Whatever he scores from here is new ground for the union.

He is 23 years old.

Where Tasman sit

The Mako are sixth after four rounds, three wins and a loss, on 15 points. That is a middle-of-a-very-crowded-top-seven position, and it is worth noting that seven teams are inside six points of each other.

Their next match is a big one. Sunday 30 August, 5.05pm, Semenoff Stadium, Whangarei, and it is Northland's first Ranfurly Shield defence since taking the Log o' Wood off Canterbury. Northland have not had to defend the Shield since 1978.

A hot winger walking into a Shield match in front of a Northland crowd that has waited forty-eight years for exactly this. That is a Sunday afternoon worth clearing the calendar for.

One thing to keep an eye on

When a young outside back does this, the conversation about higher honours starts almost immediately, and you will see a lot of it written with more confidence than anyone actually has. We are not going to add to that here.

What we will say is simpler. Watch him while he is doing it. Seasons like this do not come around often, and the fun part is happening right now, on a Sunday afternoon, at a provincial ground near you.