Wairarapa-Bush bow out with a whimper

Wairarapa-Bush saved their worst for last in their 2009 Heartland rugby championship campaign.
They were ordinary with a capital O in their 24-6 loss to Mid-Canterbury at Memorial Park, Masterton on Saturday, their final Meads Cup play-off appearance for the season.
While the intent of the home team couldn't be questioned, they bowed out with no more than a whimper.
It was a performance which lacked accuracy and authority practically from the first kick.
A missed penalty attempt by Byron Karaitiana in the opening minutes was to be the forerunner to five other such misses - three by Karaitiana and two by Nick Olson - during the course of the game
That was bad but even worse was the continual inability of players kicking for space to actually find it.
Twice early on kicks were actually charged down and from then on practically ever kick made in general play went to hand rather than land, much to the joy of Mid-Canterbury who usually returned them with interest, either with well-placed kicks of their own or by the ball carrier running hard and straight and setting up good targets for their team-mates.
Not helping the Wairarapa-Bush cause either was their habit of turning over possession in both the mauls and tackle situations.
Invariably the Mid-Canterbury pack arrived at the breakdowns in greater numbers than their Wairarapa-Bush counterparts and were consequently able to either push their opposition off the ball or counter ruck with the same result.
In the lineouts Wairarapa-Bush suffered from a mix of poor throwing, poor timing and poor communication. There too Mid-Canterbury were able to "steal" ball on a regular basis and while neither side gained anything like a telling edge in the scrums the visitors could claim to have had the more stable platform.
The Wairarapa-Bush forwards did deserve plaudits for the aggressiveness of their close quarter defence around the fringes of the scrums and mauls but the more the game progressed the more the number of tackles which were missed from second and third phase play.
Both backlines made their share of basic handling and passing mistakes but whereas the Mid-Canterbury rearguard did string some promising attacks together through their collective skills Wairarapa-Bush were forced to rely on individual brilliance to make valuable metreage.
And, Mid-Canterbury had superiority in the kicking department, both for goal and in general play.
Mid-Canterbury, for their part, would have been disappointed to be leading by just 6-3 at the end of a first half in which they had always looked the more likely of the two teams to score tries but only had two penalties by first-five Kieran Lindsay to show for their efforts. That being enough to give them a slender advantage over a Wairarapa-Bush team whose sole points came from a Nick Olson penalty.
Lindsay and Olson also swapped penalties early in the second spell before halfback Josh Lindsay (brother of Kieran) scored Mid-Canterbury's first try, and how easy it was. He broke from a scrum about 20m for the Wairarapa-Bush line and into a yawning gap which never closed. He scored close to the posts and Kieran Lindsay converted to give Mid-Canterbury a 16-6 advantage.
A fourth Kieran Lindsay penalty stretched that lead to 19-6 and the final rites were delivered when a Mid-Canterbury attack saw the ball go through several hands before No 8 Jason Gill crashed over for an unconverted try.
Having flanker Joss Tua-Davidson sent from the field late in the game pretty much summed up Wairarapa-Bush's bad day at the office. He was given his marching orders for a misdemeanour detected by assistant referee Chris Jefferies and reported to referee Nick Briant who had no hesitation in giving Tua-Davidson an early shower.
Even allowing for that alleged indiscretion Tua-Davidson was one of the few Wairarapa-Bush players to emerge from this particular match with his reputation intact. He was a tireless worker and the same could be said of fellow forwards, lock Andrew McLean and prop Kurt Simmonds.
Hooker Ben Pereira's searing 40m burst early in the first half was an individual highlight for Wairarapa-Bush but he retired through injury not long afterwards. Wing Junior Togia and fullback Nick Olson had few opportunities on attack for the home team but they were still the pick of the backs, each featuring in a couple of dazzling breaks from broken play.
Saturday's loss left Wairarapa-Bush at the bottom of the Meads Cup points table and with a Heartland seeding of sixth, three better than they managed in 2008 when they were beaten semi-finalists in the Lochore Cup section.