Rugby: Steamers reach the 'bottom of barrel'

INJURED: Steamers player Shahn Eru will miss the rest of the season after breaking his jaw against Northland on Friday. PHOTO/FILE

Bay of Plenty Steamers coach Clayton McMillan will have to deal with a mounting injury list when his team take on Wellington in their next ITM Cup match.

Shahn Eru (broken jaw) and Pingi Tala'apitaga (knee) picked up injuries in the bonus-point win over Northland on Friday night and will most likely miss the rest of the season. Tala'apitaga will undergo a full assessment this week but McMillan said "it was not looking good" for the prop.

On top of those injuries, Tim Bond (out for the season) and captain Culum Retallick (two-game suspension) will also be missing against Wellington, leaving some big holes to plug in the Steamers forward pack.

"We have had our share of injuries and we are really starting to scrape the bottom of the barrell now. We may have to bring some of the development guys in [for the match against Wellington], but they have been performing well," McMillan said.

Some pleasing news for Steamers fans is co-captain and No8 Carl Axtens is nearing a return for the Bay as he deals with nerve damage in his arm.

McMillan said the 37-5 win over Northland on Friday was an important one for their semifinals aspirations in the ITM Cup Championship.

"We were mindful of them being a banana skin for us. We, obviously, have aspirations for this season and they could have really slipped us up," McMillan said.

He was really happy with the bench players on Friday who came on and made a big impact, in a match which saw the Steamers score all four of their tries in the second half.

The Steamers now have a four win-four loss record this year, which is a big improvement on their past two seasons. However, McMillan was quick to play down their improvement in results.

"I think a lot of people are happy we have four wins out [of eight games] but my expectations for the team are higher than that ... it is nice to still be in the hunt for the semifinals but if we want to be real contenders we need to be a bit higher than a 50 per cent win rate."

He added they were making good progress though in getting a winning culture back in the team.

McMillan, who is in his first year as Steamers coach, has plenty of experience coaching in Wellington during recent years and he said he was looking forward to going up against plenty of his old friends this weekend.

While the Steamers are struggling with injury, they have a welcome nine-day turnaround until their match against Wellington on Sunday in Tauranga. The Steamers have two games left to play in the regular season.