On a slippery surface, New Zealand exploited Hauff's weakness with low balls by grubber kicking to him near their line, with at least one fumble in the second half leading to a try to Tawera Nikau, while also failing to clear the ball over the dead ball line in a race with NZ replacement Clayton Friend, leading to a try to Friend.
Over the next several years Isemonger was both in and out of the first grade team with the Sharks for a variety of reasons; originally having to compete with representative players such as Chris McKenna, Tawera Nikau, Les Davidson and Danny Lee meant a first team position was more often than not hard to come by.