Big crowd expected as spectators head back to Rugby Park

Stretching out: Fletcher Scammell, here in action against the West Coast, is back in the Poverty Bay starting 15 at lock. Picture by Paul Rickard

A big crowd is expected for the return of Poverty Bay fans to Rugby Park this weekend, with free entry (koha encouraged) and a forecast of fine weather.

The Civil Project Solutions Poverty Bay squad will be eager to bounce back from last Saturday's heartbreaking loss to North Otago in Oamaru.

They will want to make a statement against the struggling King Country.

In front of their hometown fans for the first time this season, Poverty Bay would have a good challenge ahead of them, co-coach Tom Cairns said.

Despite sitting on the bottom of the leaderboard with a negative-152-point differential, King Country had been improving week on week and Poverty Bay would not take them for granted.

“Having All Black captain Sam Cane in the team for a week looked like it gave them a good boost,” Cairns said.

“They played well against Whanganui last week. We're not taking anything for granted.”

While Poverty Bay were not dwelling in the past of last weekend's loss, Cairns said the team were naturally motivated to do well.

“There were things we need to improve and we worked on that at training on Tuesday.”

Poverty Bay will look to use their depth again this weekend, particularly in the backs, where they have several key players who could be unavailable due to injury. They include fullback Andrew Tauatevalu and winger Aaron McLelland.

Cairns said they would continue to assess their availability before they made a call this morning, but they had “a number” of players with niggling injuries.

He said King Country had a strong backline with a very good fullback. Poverty Bay would have to match.

“They have threats right the way through . . . they've really grown in terms of their performance, and they've got some big boys in the lock and loose forward area.”

Poverty Bay will look to continue playing the same brand of rugby that has brought them success so far this season.

Cairns said that with speedsters on the wings and big men in the forward pack, they wanted to play expansive rugby and punish defences who couldn't shut down their attack in close.

After last weekend's loss, Poverty Bay slid to seventh on the leaderboard, on 11 points. With South Canterbury (20 points), Thames Valley (19 points) and Horowhenua Kapiti (18 points) dominating the top of the table after four weeks of play, the race is now on for the fourth place. In conjunction with that is the Lochore Cup race, with Poverty Bay, Whanganui (15 points), Mid Canterbury (15 points) and North Otago (14 points) all in contention.

• Kick-off is at 2.30pm.