Winger Tevita Li spearheaded a dominant performance by North Harbour in their Mitre 10 Cup Premiership clash with Taranaki this afternoon, scoring four tries in his team's 55-26 win in New Plymouth.
Li racked up a hat-trick in the first half before adding a fourth towards the end of the match thanks to some strong finishes and poor defending by the hosts.
The bundle pushes the 23-year-old Highlander into the top spot in this year's try-scoring list with 10 in 2018 so far - two ahead of Waikato's Samisoni Taukei'aho.
With the win, North Harbour extend their gap from the bottom of the Premiership table to 11 points.
Taranaki, on the other hand, face relegation from the top tier of the Mitre 10 Cup as they remain in last place with two rounds to go and and one point behind Counties Manukau. The Steelers play Northland tomorrow to see if they can buffer that lead.
The Bulls, who have won just two of their eight games so far this year, will need to cause a couple of upsets to avoid relegation with two rounds to go.
They play Canterbury next week before wrapping up their season against Wellington.
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