AERIAL DISPLAY: Waikohu player KC Wilson (front) and OBM’s Scott McKinley clash in spectacular fashion in premier rugby action last Saturday. Picture by Paul Rickard
RUGBY
IF anyone thought last season’s form would be a predictor of competence this year, the first weekend of premier grade rugby has already proven them wrong.
GT Shearing Waikohu were an unstoppable force in their Civil Project Solutions Lee Brothers Shield campaign n 2020 but were unable to overcome the previously struggling Enterprise OBM in their first fixture of the year.
East Coast Farm Vets YMP started their season with a decisive victory over Contract Consultants High School Old Boys. Against Waikohu tomorrow they will look to continue that form as they seek redemption for a tough finals loss last year.
This weekend will be the first look at Larsawn Ngatapa’s 2021 side, who have their first game of the season after a bye last Saturday.
They will face OBM at Patutahi in what is shaping up to be an exciting test for both sides as they look for a solid start to this season’s campaign.
Ngatapa coach Stephen Hickey said they would field “six or seven debutants” this weekend.
“There are a lot of newbies on the block . . . it’ll be interesting to see how we do.”
Hickey was excited with the potential his team had already shown in preseason but said they hadn’t been put to the true test of premier grade rugby yet.
“We’ve been getting good numbers to training and there’s a good buzz around, but we’ve still to find out, one way or another, how we’ll do.
“They (OBM) were probably the biggest winners last weekend. It’s a big ask for us to get up. They’re obviously on a high, and we’ve got to match them.”
OBM coach Clint Pirihi said they were coming into the game with a similar game plan to last week and had been focusing on their execution at training this week.
“All we can do from our end is control what we’re doing,” he said.
“Our focus is on fun and doing the little things right.
“It’s going to be a good battle. They (Ngatapa) aren’t going to lie down, and they never will. You tackle them hard, and they keep getting back up.”
He said his team lost their structure in parts of the game last weekend, and the focus this week was on playing their game for longer periods this Saturday.
It’s Pirihi’s first year in a premier-grade coaching position, and he said the workload behind the scenes had been “overwhelming” at times.
“There’s so much work, but I have a good managerial group and support around me from the club. We were all at the clubrooms every night last week, and that was just preparing for one game.”
YMP coach Brian Leach said he was proud of how his team played last weekend and they had been working on the finer details of their game at training this week.
“There were a lot more positives than negatives,” he said.
“Little individual errors cost us.”
His team struggled with their discipline at times in their first match of the season, allowing a penalty try, and he said they’d addressed the issue at training this week.
YMP are coming into this season with a much fitter squad, and Leach said they had seen the benefits of their increased cardio work already.
He expects Waikohu to come out “a different side” from the team who lost last weekend, and YMP are expecting a tough game.
Their backline will remain largely unchanged, but they are still waiting on the outcome of several niggling injuries that might see them shuffle their starting line-up.
Waikohu captain Tane McGuire said that while his side were champions last year, it was a clean slate this season.
“That all depends on the perspective of whether it was an upset loss last weekend,” he said.
“OBM have a good team.”
He said Waikohu had identified their defensive patterns as a fatal flaw in the game against OBM, and they worked on that “a lot” at training this week.
McGuire said he expected a hard-fought game tomorrow, with both teams being “even across the park”.
Waikohu will have some of their playmakers back in the fold this weekend, with Ethine Reeves at fullback, Kelvin Smith at first five-eighth and Adrian Wyrill back in the forward pack.
Senior One teams are in action tomorrow, with a Civil Project Solutions “fire round” to start their season.
Each of the eight teams will play two games each weekend, with $1000 up for grabs to be distributed between the top three teams. The first-placed team will walk away with $500 and bragging rights going into their regular season, which starts in two weeks.
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