The prospects of Wairarapa-Bush challenging hard for the major spoils in the Heartland rugby competition have been given a huge boost.
Fears that prolific-scoring first-five Glen Walters might not be on deck in 2013 dissipated yesterday when Wairarapa-Bush head coach Mark Rutene confirmed Walters would not only be available forrepresentative selection again but was transferring from the Hutt Old Boys Marist club in Wellington to Greytown.
He could have his first game for the defending Tui Cup champions when they take on Bush Sports at Pahiatua tomorrow.
News that Walters, a former pupil at Kuranui College, was going to be playing his club rugby here was particularly heartening for Rutene, as he will lose the "loan player" status he had last year and enable another player to be brought in from outside the region if deemed necessary for their Heartland campaign.
"I guess you could say it gives us an extra card to play but we are still a way off from going down that track. Right now the focus is on giving the local players the chance to push their claims," Rutene said yesterday.
Walters was a big success story for Wairarapa-Bush in 2012. In just nine appearances he scored 134 points, the most scored by a Wairarapa-Bush player in any one season. The accuracy of his goal kicking was evidenced by his 30 penalties and 17 conversions, and he scored a couple of tries as well.
Another possible gain for Wairarapa-Bush is former Otago hooker Ben Pereira who has joined East Coast. He turned out for Wairarapa-Bush four seasons back as a "player of origin" and while he is yet to confirm his availability for representative rugby this time round Rutene is "pretty optimistic" he will do so.
"Ben's coming to training on Sunday and we will see where we go from there."
The acquisition of Pereira would be timely as Wairarapa-Bush's front row stocks have been adversely affected by last season's skipper Kurt Simmonds being sidelined by injury and the unavailability - at least in the meantime - of Jamie Hunt and Daniel George.
Wairarapa-Bush will have their first hit-out for this season when they play US Universities at Memorial Park on June 19.
