Football
Wairarapa United's fate in two major football competitions will largely depend on their results achieved over Queen's Birthday Weekend.
Losses to Wellington Olympic in a Central League fixture at Howard Booth Park, Carterton, on Saturday, and Miramar Rangers in a Chatham Cup match at Dave Farrington Park, Miramar, on Monday would see them eliminated from one and almost certainly playing for a minor placing in the other.
The elimination would come in the Chatham Cup, which is a knockout series involving clubs from all over the country. Who will ever forget the huge celebrations when Wairarapa United got their names on that trophy in 2011.
Defeat in their Central League match wouldn't necessarily be the end of the road for Wairarapa United in that competition simply because there will still be nine more rounds to go but even a cursory glance at the points table illustrates what an uphill battle it will be to make up the lost ground.
Olympic are on top, having won all seven of their matches and accumulating the maximum 21 points. Miramar Rangers are second on 17 (five wins and two draws) and Wairarapa United third on 10 (three wins, two draws and two losses).
Of course, the best news for Wairarapa United from Saturday's series of games would be for them to beat Olympic and Miramar Rangers to lose to defending champions - and fourth-placed - Napier City Rovers, a situation which would be made to look even better by the next weekend's draw.
Then Olympic and Miramar Rangers will do battle while Wairarapa United will confront sixth-placed Petone.
A win there is no foregone conclusion but, all things being equal, it should happen.
Not surprisingly Wairarapa United coach Phil Keinzley has been doing his maths on the Central League situation and knows if everything goes the way he would like, his side could be only four points behind the leader by Sunday week.
However, he also understands there is a rather different flip side to that equation, lose to Olympic and their chances of capturing the league title for the first time would be significantly eroded, if not completely dashed.
It is little wonder then Keinzley isn't giving any thought whatsoever to resting some of his players for Saturday's game with the idea of having them fresh to take on Miramar Rangers two days later in what promises to be thrilling Chatham Cup encounter.
The evenness of those two sides was shown when they met in a league match last weekend, Wairarapa United scoring a late goal to force a 1-1 draw.
"Barring injury, we will definitely be going into both games with the strongest possible side ... quite honestly I don't think we have any other option," Keinzley said yesterday.
Recruits to the Wairarapa United line-up, Frenchmen Alesseny Cissako and Charles Francois-Mallman, made huge impressions in their first two league matches for the club - the win over Napier City Rovers and the draw with Miramar Rangers - but whereas they went into those games somewhat under the radar of opposition "spies" that will no longer be the case.
In fact, Olympic coach and former All White boss Mick Waite was a spectator when Wairarapa United and Miramar Rangers met last Saturday and he is sure to have taken notes on the influence by Cissako in midfield and Mallman up front.
Keinzley isn't too worried if the French duo are marked men, saying that would simply give experienced Wairarapa United campaigners such as Waisake Sabatu, Adam Cowan, Nathan Cooksley, Miroslav Tvaroh and Seule Soromon the chance to better strut their stuff.
"From what we've seen over the last couple of weekends, a lot of the senior players are now starting to find their best form so we won't mind if the opposition targets just a couple of the guys, it just might play into our hands," he said.
Soromon, especially, won't mind if fellow striker Mallman is targeted as the former Vanuatu international is usually the subject of close marking himself
Plans were for Saturday's match to start at the earlier time of 1pm to allow the Carterton club to play their local league games fixtures in the afternoon but Olympic were not prepared to shift from the usual 2pm start.