Grand finals day for Wairarapa-Bush club rugby in 2011 will arrive a fortnight earlier than usual.
The finals will take place at Memorial Park in Masterton on Saturday, July 16, with the semifinals of the premier division grade being played on July 9.
The new dates reflect the congested domestic rep seasoncaused by New Zealand hosting the 2011 Rugby World Cup with Heartland championship games also starting two weeks earlier then normal in early August.
The premier division semis will see the top side in pool A playing the second-placed team in pool B and vice versa, but just how the draw will pan out won't be known until after the last series of pool games on Saturday.
The likelihood is that East Coast with 18 points will top pool A, but for the other qualifying spot there is a battle royal between three clubs, Pioneer, on 14 points and Greytown and Martinborough, both on 11 points.
The fact they still have East Coast to play suggests Greytown are near certainties to be in the also-ran category, although there is always the chance that East Coast may take the opportunity to rest some of their key players. In that case, a Greytown win couldn't be completely discounted.
Apart from the latter scenario occurring, it would seem that the Martinborough v Pioneer encounter at Martinborough will be an absolute crunch game for those teams.
The last time they met, Martinborough edged home in a thriller. They will go into Saturday's fixture knowing anything less than a win won't be good enough for them to leapfrog Pioneer on the points table.
In pool B, the semifinal qualifiers will come from one of three teams: Carterton (15 points), Gladstone (12 points) and Eketahuna (11 points).
The form book says Carterton should be safe as they will be hot favourites to beat Marist at Carterton and, providing Gladstone can secure the maximum five points (four for the win and a bonus for scoring four or more tries) against Featherston at Featherston, they will be guaranteed a top four slot as well. Eketahuna's big hope will be that either Carterton or Gladstone trip up and they take maximum points off Masterton Red Star at Memorial Park.
In summary then, a betting man would probably lean towards a semifinal draw which would see East Coast up against Gladstone and Carterton taking on Pioneer.
