D-Day for Wairarapa

It's D-Day for Wairarapa-Bush when they meet West Coast in an NPC third division rugby match at Memorial Park, Masterton tomorrow.
In this case the D stands for Decision with the result virtually deciding whether Wairarapa-Bush will progress through to the semi-finals or whether it they will again join the ranks of "also rans" when preliminary round matches are completed the following weekend.
Up until last Saturday the odds were heavily in favour of Wairarapa-Bush beating West Coast comfortably , even allowing for the fact that the Coasters did upset them in the opening match of their third division campaign in 2003.
After all Wairarapa-Bush had gone through four matches without defeat-three wins and a draw- and a top four spot was there for the taking.
On the other hand West Coast had managed only the one win and again looked set to be one of the competition cellar-dwellers.
But how things changed in the space of just 80 minutes.
Wairarapa-Bush travelled to Gisborne and came home with their tails well and truly between their legs, beaten 30-5 by Poverty Bay, while West Coast gave their supporters something to celebrate by claiming the scalp of King Country in Greymouth.
Suddenly tomorrow's game took on a new meaning for both sides, Wairarapa-Bush dropping from second to third on the points table and in a position from where another loss could spell disaster for their semi-final aspirations and West Coast improving their situation enough to makes the semis a possibility, albeit a remote one.
Hopefully the Gisborne experience will prove to be a blessing in diguise for Wairarapa-Bush
From all accounts they had the territory and possession to do the business, but when it came to turning scoring opportunities into points on the board they were a distant second to the home side.
Coach Peter Russell is confident the lessons learned against Poverty Bay will serve Wairarapa-Bush well tomorrow.
Especially that which says poor option taking will prove costly at this level of the game.
"Players have to think on their feet. They have to make decisions quickly and stick with them," he said. "It's all about self belief?..we didn't have a lot of that last weekend."
A key figure in the option taking department will be first-five Patrick Rimene. It is no secret that when he plays well Wairarapa-Bush generally tend to play well, and if the West Coast challenge is to be thwarted he will need to take command of his team's tactical approach.
Just exactly what that approach will be Russell isn't saying, but with so much at stake the liklihood must be that Wairarapa-Bush will look to play a style of rugby which provides strong running outside backs like Simanu Simanu, Esava Teko, Jaco Pieterse and Jorji Tamani every opportunity to work their magic.
That can only happen, of course, if the Wairarapa-Bush forwards gain at least a measure of superiority up front and that won't be easy against a bulky West Coast pack which will fancying their prospects of dominating the set pieces of scrum and lineout.
Russell believes his forwards can rise to the occasion providing they operate as a unit rather than fall into the same trap as they did against Poverty Bay when they all too often went in ones and twos.
"We have to keep our turnovers to an absolute minimum and the best way of doing that is to have good numbers supporting the ball carrier," he said. "Players who get themselves isolated will always get into trouble??.either they'll get the ball taken off them or they'll get themselves penalised.It's a no-win situation."
The actual composition of the Wairarapa-Bush team for tomorrow will probably not be decided until the 11th hour.
At the time these notes were penned a couple of players were still in doubt through injury and the 'flu bug which hit the squad earlier this week is still hanging around.
Whatever the make-up of the side though the incentive for victory is such that anything but a Wairarapa-Bush victory would be a major disappointment.