Midfield beckons for maestro Hona

He was a schoolboy loose-forward star with a lock-like leaping ability, who switched to wing to play his provincial rugby.
Jason Hona's dazzling variety even extends to playing in the front-row for the New Zealand sevens team - now the Steamers star has entered the last realm of positional play left to conquer.
The 24-year-old has been turning out at first-five for Rangataua in Baywide club rugby for the last two weeks, coinciding with the Maungatapu club posting two impressive wins.
On Saturday, he was a pivotal figure in Rangataua's 26-20 win over leaders Whakarewarewa, even snapping a vital drop-goal late in the second half.
He's quick to assure punters he's not lining up a crack at Mike Delany's vacant No10 jersey - but a move to the midfield could definitely be on the cards.
"I've been looking at playing centre this year and I had 80mins for the Chiefs development team there a couple of weeks ago," Hona said.
"I've been playing centre or second-five at club level most of the season until the last couple of weeks, which coincided with Ruki (Tipuna) leaving. At centre, you often have to throw flat, quick passes in the face of stiff defence and they have to be right on the button and that's the big area of my game I'm trying to improve while I'm playing at first-five."
Midfield soddenly looms as an area of strategic importance to the Steamers this season, with Grant McQuoid retiring, Cory Aporo heading to North Harbour and Brett Mather departing offshore to Japan.
It leaves Phil Burleigh as the senior partner and Dan Waenga as a likely contender but both are more suited to second-five, leaving the success of Hona's latest switch keenly needed.
Not that the 36-match Steamers flier is feeling too much pressure - he's just lapping up the chance to get closer to the action at club level.
"It's fun and something different. It's a bit easier at the club if I stuff something up rather than someone else because I can take the criticism a little bit better.
I've always liked the kicking, even when I was at No8 at school and I suppose that's how my kicking game started. At least when I'm at first-five, I'm expected to kick and I can even try trick kicks and get away with it!"
There was nothing too tricky about his kicking on Saturday - he used his long, raking left-boot to great effect, carving off huge chunks of turf and leaving ice on several bombs.
He made a couple of withering breaks, one a 50m effort from deep ingoal, and put in a couple of massive hits, echoes of his time as a loosie.
Only the drop-kick was dodgy, wobbling over in an unlikely trajectory from 25m out.
"I pulled out my lob wedge and ended up cutting it in half ... it only just crept over the bar," he explained with a grin.
Hona's next challenge could be surviving this week's New Zealand sevens camp in Mount Maunganui - he was waiting to hear from national coach Gordon Tietjens today whether he'd made the cut or not.