It would depend where the colony was based - from a friendly natives perspective their best bet would be somewhere in the South Island where the numbers of Maori were comparatively low, compared to the North.
You would probably also want the colony quite a bit further south, as the northern part of the N Island (looking at Nelson/Marlborough) was as much integrated into the North Island polity as the South, if one looks at settlement of Iwi anyway.
They would also need a fair bit of home or otherwise support for a while, while they adapt to local conditions. Initial Anglo contact with NZ was explorer/missionary/whaler and trader based, scattered in isolated coastal stations who relied upon local Maori for support around the islands and this was as part of a wider Australasia/British support system. Then widescale settlement begain to be pushed from Australia and the Home Islands, over a period of decades, which took a lot of planning and determination. I suspect a group of lost sailors, even if large, would have a lot more trouble, especially given that they are there several centuries earlier, and cannot rely upon the British/Australian support my ancestors could