The novelty of playing in front of their families at Toll Stadium will give the Northland Development team extra encouragement in their important clash against Bay of Plenty tomorrow.
The Northland B side play their first home match of their competition as the curtain-raiser for the Northland-Southland ITM Cup game atthe stadium and coach Adriaan Ferris is hoping the team can celebrate their homecoming with a win.
"The boys are all excited about playing at home this week but they know they have to front up again, the Bay of Plenty are a strong union and they have a good coach in Clayton McMillan, so they'll be up for a big game," he said.
Northland started their campaign the Northern Region Development competition with a heavy loss to Auckland but staged an impressive comeback over a very similar Auckland Emerging Players XV line-up last week.
The 24-22 win over AEP last week gave the side a much-needed boost after their disappointing opening round defeat.
"The change after the first loss was more of an altitudinal thing and we addressed that before last week's game and the boys responded as we hoped they would," Ferris said.
Bay of Plenty are expected to be desperate for a win this weekend after two losses from their opening matches. They opened up with a seven-point defeat by neighbours Waikato before losing 26-46 to North Harbour last week. The Northland side will be strengthened the return from injury by Taniwha loose forward Joel McKenty, who has now recovered from a medial ligament tear but needs a game of rugby before being considered for the provincial A side.
Northland: 1 Paea Fa'anunu, 2 Tevita Vaipulu 3 Garry Whippy, 4 Andrew Richie 5 Steve Baker, 6 Ryan Barker, 7 Dan Mason, 8 Matt Harrison (c), 9 Davion Young, 10 Reece Hamon, 11 Ualosi Kailea/Brock Mustard, 12 Josh Woodman, 13 Brook Gilmore, 14 Jershon Witerhira-Stewart 15 Matt Wright, 16 Jackie Tango, 17 Aterea Davis 18 Solomon Palu, 19 Joel McKenty, 20 Ethan Crutcher, 21 Mike Wirangi, 22 Brock Mustard/Rhys Te Nana.
