Who would have thought it?
Two matches into the 2012 Heartland rugby championship and Wairarapa-Bush sit at the top of the points table.
Their 48-21 thumping of Poverty Bay in Gisborne on Saturday came hard on the heels of a 32-21 defeat of South Canterbury in Masterton and the bonus point for scoring four or more tries (they got six) left them on nine points, the same as North Otago and one ahead of Wanganui, the defending Meads Cup champions.
Then come West Coast (6 points), South Canterbury and Poverty Bay, East Coast, Thames Valley and Buller all 4, King Country 2, Mid-Canterbury 1 and Horowhenua-Kapiti 0.
The lofty heights scaled early in this season's Heartland series is a far cry from what occurred last year when Wairarapa-Bush won just the one game in the whole of the competition and placed 10th of the 12 teams.
But if their current situation suggests Wairarapa-Bush could be a serious Meads Cup contender this time round, head coach Mark Rutene is determined to keep the feet on the ground, emphasising there are still six preliminary round matches to be played before the four semifinalists are decided.
"You can't afford to get too far ahead of yourself, it's all about taking one game at a time," Rutene said yesterday. "Yes, it's nice to have two wins in the bag but there's a long way to go. We have to keep that in mind."
While the score in the Poverty Bay match might suggest it being pretty much one-way traffic, it was anything but the case. "We certainly didn't have everything our own way," Rutene said. "That second half was hard work. We were forced to do a lot of defending then and we coped well. We were better organised than we were against South Canterbury. We generally made the tackles count."
The opening 40 minutes saw Wairarapa-Bush call the tune in most aspects of play and they went to the break with a 27-7 advantage. Even then, Rutene was not altogether satisfied with their performance, saying too many mistakes had been made, more through poor execution than anything else.
"We did some really good things but overall we weren't as clinical as we wanted to be. We could have done better."
Wairarapa-Bush were solid in the scrums and lineouts, with front rowers Jamie Hunt and Kurt Simmonds taking the eye in the tighter exchanges and James Goodger being prominent in the loose.
Halfback Inia Katia scored two of his team's six tries and was always dangerous whenever he looked to run the ball back at his opposition and there was a lot to admire about the steadiness of Titapu Pairama-Lewington in midfield.
Both Jessie McGilvary and Nick Olson posed problems for the Poverty Bay defence with their elusive running and once again the boot of Glen Walters was an obvious plus. He landed six conversions and two penalties for a personal tally of 18 points, four shy of the 22 points against South Canterbury.
Rutene and assistant coach Paddy Gough rang the changes early in the second half with most of the reserves being introduced to the action at that stage.
Wairarapa-Bush play West Coast in Greymouth next Saturday.
Wairarapa-Bush 48 (Inia Katia 2, Cameron Hayton, Jessie McGilvary, Johan Van Vliet and Nick Olson tries; Glen Walters six conversions and two penalties), Poverty Bay 21 (Moss Doran, David Philander and Jason Tuapawa tries; Scott Leighton 3 conversions).
Other Heartland results: Thames Valley 31, Mid-Canterbury 17; South Canterbury 37, East Coast 9; North Otago 22, Buller 15; Wanganui 28, Horowhenua-Kapiti 10; West Coast 27, King Country 21.