Whitcombe adds scrum skills as new coach starts build up

He does not officially start work until mid-January, but preparations for Adriaan Ferris' first year coaching the Northland Rugby side for their 2011 ITM Cup campaign, kicking off in July, are well under way.
His assistant coach for the year has been confirmed - former Northland All Black hooker Derren Whitcombe will join Ferris at Northland's coaching helm this month.
Whitcombe, who also played for Auckland province and the Blues, has come on board as a specialist forward coach to compliment Ferris' backs expertise.
The new Taniwha head coach said he was keen to start work with Whitcombe.
"He's a front row specialist and has been brought in to strengthen up our scrums and set pieces. Both he and I are quite young, 38 and 33 respectively, so I think we will relate well to the players and have a good synergy."
A training squad of 30, made up of current players, along with Northland Development and Academy players have already begun pre-season training, slogging it out since mid-December twice a week, working on fitness and conditioning.
"We needed to start early - the competition starts a couple of weeks earlier this year [July 14] with the World Cup happening. It's a short year," Ferris said.
The squad will be expanded until the coaches reach 35-40 players training. "That squad will be quite fluid with players coming in and out until we find our 28."
The former Wellsford and Northland Development coach has taken over the Taniwha reins from Bryce Woodward, and is anticipating an exciting season.
Nine players were contracted prior to Ferris' appointment as coach in November and while no more have been confirmed yet, four or five have been given contracts to sign, he said.
"Ideally we would like to have a core of 15 players with contracts, and the rest of the 28-man squad will come out of the club competition and those players will be picked on their form in their club games." If the region can foster a strong club competition, that will go towards creating a strong Northland ITM Cup side.
"Naturally there are areas which we need to strengthen up on and bring in more depth with players from outside the region, but a good majority of the players will come from within the province. A good team was developed under Bryce [Woodward] and we will try to keep that much the same.
"Obviously, we want to be very competitive but we have local talent up here and we would like to give them an opportunity, just as I was given the opportunity to coach this year," he said.
There is no shortage of players who want to wear the cambridge blue jersey, with the likes of New Zealand Sevens representative and former North Harbour and Bay of Plenty provincial player Zar Lawrence signalling his intent to play for Northland this year. He has been included in the Northland Sevens side after Ferris suggested he join the team to show some commitment to the province.
"Zar is from up North, near Kaitaia, and said he wants to have a crack at playing for Northland ... he's a local boy coming home basically. We haven't contracted him but he came up on his own accord to have a go at making the team," Ferris said.