Wayne Ensor
RUGBY
NGATI Porou East Coast have reappointed Wayne Ensor and Troy Para as coaches for next year’s Heartland Championship rugby season.
Despite not winning a Heartland game in the past two years as representative coaches, Ensor and Para have the backing of the NPEC board.
“We had a hell of a review when the board asked some tough questions and we were happy with that,” said Ensor, who has two years as a Heartland coach behind him.
“The board identified areas that need to be improved, as did Troy and I, and we’re all looking forward to the challenge.
“One of the biggest challenges is to find a training schedule that works for all the squad.
“With the players spread around the Coast, in town and coming in from outside our areas, we were forced to have one training session, on Friday night, before games.
“We need to look at different options but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I believe we are not far away from being more competitive.
“Christmas is a time for family, but after that we want to look at making the club competition stronger by recruiting players.
“We have a strong core of players who showed they are more than capable of competing at Heartland level.
“We want those players to start thinking about their fitness and skill levels before the club season starts, and then continue throughout the season.”
Ensor, a former Poverty Bay lock and captain and successful club coach with High School Old Boys (winning back-to-back Lee Bros Shield titles in 2016 and 2017) admitted the standard of Heartland rugby was “way above what I thought it would be”.
“Before the Heartland Championship started (in 2006), the standard of NPC rugby was high.
“But I think the introduction of loan players has raised the standard and unfortunately for us we have to match that — which is why we’ll be looking at retaining some of our loan players from this season, while identifying others who we feel can strengthen the squad.” Some people will look at results since Ensor and Para teamed up and say it’s time for change . . . and that’s fair enough.
But the pair have made changes that could result in 2019 being the year that the Sky Blues get that elusive win.
It should have come when they played Poverty Bay in Ruatoria this year.
With two minutes to play, the Coast had the chance to take a 21-19 lead after halfback and skipper Sam Parkes scored a try.
The handy conversion was missed and with time up, Bay replacement Mario Counsell scored an intercept try.
“We scored tries against some of the top teams (Wanganui, first in round-robin play, South Canterbury, second, and King Country, third) but too often we lacked patience, blew tryscoring opportunities and then got punished by turning the ball over.”
It has to be said that the Coast, the smallest union in the competition, do not have the depth of the bigger unions, so that injuries play a big part when scores blow out.