Title in sight for Wairarapa-Bush coach

UNION: Tony Hargood, strategic view completed.PHOTOS/FILE

THE reappointment of Josh Syms as head coach for the Wairarapa-Bush rugby team in 2016 was pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Certainly it would have been a major surprise had he been overlooked after taking his team all the way to the Meads Cup semifinals in this season's Heartland championship after they had placed 11th on the points table the previous year, only East Coast finishing behind them.

For a debut season in the coaching role it could hardly be seen as anything other than impressive but suggest that to Syms and, typically, he takes a harsher line to his accomplishments.

"I guess you can say we did pretty well but personally I would have liked to done better," he said yesterday after his reappointment had been confirmed "with great pleasure" in a press release from the Wairarapa-Bush union.

"The whole idea when you take a job like this is to win the championship and we didn't do that, so, yes, we did take steps in the right direction but we didn't get to where we wanted to go."

Syms is convinced, however, that a Meads Cup title is within Wairarapa-Bush's grasp next season, with the proviso that steps are taken to ensure the players are ready to hit the ground running right from the time the Heartland championship kicks off.

"We need to have our players physically and mentally tuned in to what is required to succeed at that level from the word go, and that means making changes to how we operate now."

Syms sees an earlier start to club trainings and a similarly earlier start to the club season could be a big help in having players literally more up to speed when they move into the representative arena. And he would like to have the Wairarapa-Bush squad increase its number of pre-season matches to five or six so that tactics and combinations were well honed by the time the first of the championship games came around.

As for the enhancing of playing resources Syms is strongly in favour of a scenario which would see clubs working hard to encourage talented players from outside the region to join them before the club season kicked off. In that way they would make the club competition more competitive and ensure that the local players got full benefit from their presence.

Just who will assist Syms in the coaching role in 2016 has yet to be decided. Eketahuna's Wayne Roache filled the post last season but is not available to be part of next season's campaign for personal reasons. Both Syms and Wairarapa-Bush CEO Tony Hargood said Roache's input would be missed.

"I was really pleased with Wayne's contribution, he was always prepared to work hard and do what was good for the team," Syms said. Those sentiments were echoed by Harwood, who added the union were in discussions with Roache about keeping him in the fold for future years.

While a replacement for Roache is yet to be confirmed it wouldn't surprise if steps were taken to promote two former Wairarapa-Bush players, Joe Harwood and James Bruce, to a joint assistant coach position. They were part of the management team last season with Harwood helping out with the forwards and Bruce with the backs .

Away from the playing front the Wairarapa-Bush union's board completed their long- term strategic view with a meeting of all the stakeholders and clubs last weekend with Hargood saying the strategic plan for the next five years will be outlined early in the early year.