The 19-year-old left-hand opening batsman forced his way into the Otago side after scoring buckets of runs in club and district cricket.
The son of former Otago and New Zealand cricketer Ken Rutherford, Hamish entered domestic cricket with the burden of expectation on his shoulders, but his stay at the crease came to an abrupt end when he was late to chop down on a full-length delivery and had his middle stump rattled.
While Rutherford was making the long walk back to the changing rooms, Trent Boult was celebrating his first wicket for Northern Districts.
Amazingly, the 19-year-old played for New Zealand A before making his domestic debut.
He did not have to wait long before taking his first scalp for his home association.
The left-arm medium-fast bowler struck with his fourth ball, sending Rutherford packing.
He had more joy in his second spell when he dismissed the accomplished Greg Todd.
He finished the day with two for 27 from 10 overs in an impressive performance.
By stumps on day two Otago had reached 116 for two in reply to Northern Districts' 275.
Otago captain Craig Cumming, who is undefeated on 69, was pleased with the work from his side and believes Otago has its nose in front in what is shaping as an even contest.
"Obviously, we were pretty pleased to bowl them out for what they got," he said.
"It's not easy to take wickets on what is a pretty flat, sort of unresponsive pitch.
But we are in a position now where a good couple of sessions will set us up for a chance to knock them over in the second innings."
The morning session was marred by a 25min rain delay and some average cricket.
The game went into a holding pattern with neither batsmen nor bowlers taking the initiative.
Having resumed on 223 for seven, Bradley Scott opened the scoring for Northern when he bunted an innocuous full-toss from Nathan McCullum gently down to long-off.
With the new ball becoming available in the second over of the day, Otago would have expected to make early inroads into the tail.
Instead, the only breakthrough before lunch came when Graeme Aldridge set off on a suicidal single.
Ian Butler swooped on the ball at short cover and threw the stumps down.
Aldridge brought up 1000 runs in first-class cricket during his innings of 21.
Brent Arnel and Scott then added 42 valuable runs to help give the innings some substance.
The remaining wickets fell after lunch, with Mat Harvie bowling Arnel for his highest first-class score of 18 and McCullum defeating Scott on 29.
After its early hiccup, Otago slowly recovered, adding 69 for the second wicket.
Todd scored a drawn-out 29 from 94 balls before he made a late decision to defend and dragged a delivery on to his stumps.
Cumming raised his 31st first-class half-century with a mistimed pull shot but generally played quite nicely, getting some pleasant drives away.
Neil Broom struggled to find gaps and appeared to be in a defensive mindset.
By stumps he had scored just four runs from 71 deliveries, contributing to Otago's pedestrian run-rate of 2.23.
A five-wicket bag by Central Districts bowler Ewen Thompson has hurt Auckland's bid for a second straight championship win.
At stumps on the second day of their match in Napier yesterday, Central was 133 for two in its second innings to hold a lead of 139 over Auckland.
After making 213 in its first innings, Central dismissed Auckland for 207, with Thompson taking five for 57.
Wellington skipper Matthew Bell scored the first century (146) of the domestic season in his side's first innings against Canterbury at the Basin Reserve yesterday. James Franklin and Luke Woodcock made half-centuries and Bell declared at 428 for eight, giving his bowlers an hour to attack Canterbury.
At stumps on the second day, Canterbury was 45 for two, 383 runs behind.
