Rugby: Magpies loosie gets start

Bay Lads: Three of the Bay four who will be playing tonight. Pouri Rakete-Stones (left), Marino Makaele-Tu'u and Tiaan Falcon. Photo/File

Hawke's Bay loosie Marino Mikaele-Tu'u and prop Tim Farrell will both start for the New Zealand Under-20 rugby team in their Oceania Tournament match against Samoa on the Gold Coast tonight.

Magpies No 8 Mikaele-Tu'u will be making his first appearance at the tournament after missing out on the 23 for last week's win against Fiji.

He is hoping to play for the Baby Blacks at a second World Championship which starts in Georgia later this month after helping the team finish fifth at last year's World Championship in Manchester.

Eighteen-year-old Farrell impressed with his time off the subs bench against Fiji and another polished display tonight could see him exceed expectations and secure a berth for Saturday's match against Australia.

Fellow Hawke's Bay front rower Pouri Rakete-Stones and Magpies utility back Tiaan Falcon, who was in hot form against Fiji and kicked 19 points with eight successes from nine attempts, are both expected to get game time off the bench tonight.

Baby Blacks head coach and Magpies mentor Craig Philpott said his troops are looking forward to playing Samoa.

"There are a lot of New Zealand-based players in their team so we anticipate they will be motivated to perform well against us. They have dangerous attackers in their backline and are physical defenders so will certainly test our ability to keep our attacking shape," said Philpott.

"We wanted to give as many players as possible the opportunity to state their case for selection against Australia later in the week, and have made 13 changes to the starting XV with a few different combinations we are trying out."