Asked if he had anything else to add, a jocular Steamers coach Kevin Schuler says: "Oh, we don't want too many supporters from Hawke's Bay at Bay of Plenty on Sunday."
How many Magpie fans will actually snake their way up to the ASB Stadium remains to be seen, considering there's work for many the following day.
Suffice it to say, it's what Schuler didn't labour on in his closing statement that injects a modicum of reality into what the Magpies are likely to be up against - that is, it's BOP's first home game and they are desperately in need of a win.
Not that Mike Coman and his men are under any illusions that their task was going to be any less challenging, albeit in the infancy of the National Provincial Championship.
Like an unwanted plant flung into a neighbour's property after the home gardener has rapidly lost patience with a bloom-less season, Magpies reject Maritino Nemani is trying to bed his roots in BOP soil this year.
Having had a taste of both the Bays, the burly 22-year-old winger is bursting at the seams to build on an explosive start on debut last Sunday in BOP's gut-wrenching 32-29 loss to Otago in Dunedin.
Up 19-13 at halftime, the Steamers benefited from the former Magpie utility back's opening try of the game.
"I had a head knock so we played it safe but I'm now not cleared to play on Sunday," he says, disappointed to miss out but content to be a reluctant spectator in the stadium with elder brother Vili, of Auckland, and younger sibling Aaron, 20, of Sydney.
Needless to say, Nemani is embracing and relishing the BOP culture and camaraderie.
"The weather here is not too different and it's much closer to home," explains the 2013 Highlander whose father Maritino Nemani snr is a former Fijian international soccer player now living and working in Auckland.
Magpies coach Craig Philpott and assistant Danny Lee had last season, amid a rash of injuries, injected the explosive versatile outside back into the centre role in a failed experiment but on his return to the wings he had struggled to readjust.
Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph had called the former Chiefs player as injury cover for Buxton Popoali'i and Jayden Spence during the Super Rugby campaign.
He was surplus to requirements for the Magpies this winter.
"It was up to them. It's all good although I had a few good mates, you know like Ihaia West and Gillies Kaka and the others, so it'll be good to play against them the next time."
The expansive, "in-the-hand" type of running game with BOP appeals to him.
"All the boys do the hard work up front first. We have a good, young backline with some experience."
He has no qualms about playing on either wing or the backline, for that matter.
"It's just good to be on the field."
Having heard the Philpott/Lee mantra, is he a pivot for BOP even though he won't run on?
Yes and no, Nemani reckons, because the Magpies do have new personnel in the squad.
"It'll be a tough one so 'Go the Steamers', 'Go Bay of Plenty'," he says.
Schuler says while many feel Premiership BOP should have won, the harsh reality is Championship Otago have the points in the bag.
Generally he feels the fans are in for great rugby this season regardless of which tier they belong to because any team who grabs their opportunities on any given day will prevail.
"It's different to Super Rugby. It'll be an amazing competition with more upsets likely."
Schuler also agrees a lot was made of captain Willie Ripia electing for a corner touch finder with two minutes to go against Otago when a 45m penalty kick beckoned, considering he had kicked seven from seven attempts off the tee.
Gearing up
for annual
epic battle
of the Bays
Kevin Schuler
"Look, two minutes could have been four so we could have looked at the dropped goal option," he says, comfortable also in the belief that Ripia is also mindful of his kicking range.
With a rash of injuries, not excluding Nemani, across the board post-Super Rugby campaigns, Schuler is resigned to not playing the likes of inspirational Chiefs flanker Tanerau Latimer.
"Lats has played his guts out in Super Rugby so he's pretty battered," the coach explains, adding the 2013 back-to-back Super Rugby champions franchise had approached him to grant Latimer a sabbatical.
That means the 27-year-old 2012 Maori All Blacks captain is bracketed to slip on the blue-and-gold colours for the round four game against Canterbury on September 5 in Rotorua.
He considers the Steamers to be lucky to have secured the services of Reds and one-match Wallaby forward Beau Robinson. Having played a pre-season game against the Magpies and watched them demolish the Manawatu Turbos 45-18 at Mclean Park, Napier, last Saturday Schuler realises the visitors have the propensity to score tries at will after the boys in the engine room stoke the fire.
"It'll be attack all right and a good old ding-dong battle to see who can call themselves the real Bay."
