Wairarapa-Bush head coach Mark Rutene hasn't pushed the panic button despite his team's 28-21 loss to North Otago in their Heartland championship rugby match with North Otago at Masterton last Saturday.
Rather, Rutene says the focus will be on upping the ante for their last qualifying match against Horowhenua-Kapiti at Levin this weekend where a win will guarantee them a Meads Cup semifinal spot.
He and assistant coach Paddy Gough won't be sparing the rod at tonight's training session where the emphasis will be on enhancing their defensive structures and encouraging greater physicality in the mauls and rucks.
"Everybody was gutted about what happened on Saturday, we know we can play a hell of a lot better than that," Rutene said. "The execution was poor in too many areas. We let ourselves down."
Particularly disappointing for Rutene was the continual falling off tackles as their strong defence had played a big part in their winning five of their past six Heartland games.
"We didn't put enough pressure on North Otago when they had the ball, we made it too easy for them to get momentum up. Defensively, it was probably the poorest we have played all season.
"We started and finished strongly but in between we weren't nearly as competitive as we needed to be, again we made it too easy for them to control the pace of the game."
Rutene and Gough will also be looking for their backs to show better judgement in their tactical play against Horowhenua-Kapiti with Rutene saying it wasn't part of the game plan last Saturday for them to run the ball from deep inside their own territory, something they did consistently with little reward.
"We had talked at halftime about playing the corners, of keeping North Otago pinned in their own 22 and attacking from there," Rutene said. "But unfortunately we didn't do that and they kicked a couple of goals from our mistakes. Hopefully we learn from that too!"
Whether Rutene and Gough will make changes to their starting line-up for the Levin fixture remains to be seen.
There is no doubt that players such as hooker Jamie Hunt, halfback Inia Katia and first-five Byron Karaitiana helped lift the standard against North Otago through their contributions but history shows that when teams play poorly it often pays to give them another chance to set the record straight.
While a win over Horowheunua-Kapiti will guarantee Wairarapa-Bush a Meads Cup semifinal, who they will play is still up in the air.
Ahead of them on the competition table are Wanganui (27 points) and East Coast (26) and if the status quo remains third-placed Wairarapa-Bush (23) would be travelling to Ruatoria to confront East Coast.
The odds favour Wanganui winning their last preliminary round game against Thames Valley but East Coast are away to near neighbours Poverty Bay and with no love lost between these two unions - and Poverty Bay coming off a big 56-29 win over Thames Valley - anything could happen. A Poverty Bay win would be just what the doctor ordered for Wairarapa-Bush as, providing they are victorious in Levin, they would probably move to second place on the points table and earn themselves a home semifinal.
And even more exciting in that case would be the prospect of them winning their semi and Wanganui losing theirs, a situation which would see the grand final being played at Memorial Park.
All that conjecture could change dramatically, however, if the NZRU has a change of heart over their decision to deprive South Canterbury of only two bonus points and a $4500 fine after they were found guilty of breaking the loan player rule in three of their Heartland matches.
Other Heartland unions have indicated they are unhappy with the penalty and an appeal is to be lodged, the outcome of which could directly affect Wairarapa-Bush if the two teams which lost to South Canterbury over that period, North Otago and Thames Valley, are allocated the four points South Canterbury received for winning those games.
In that case North Otago would move to 24 points and into third place on the competition table, relegating Wairarapa-Bush to fourth and, if things stayed that way, into a semifinal against defending champions Wanganui at Wanganui.
Should Wairarapa-Bush lose to Horowhenua-Kapiti this weekend, they will still be involved in a semifinal, only it could be for the second tier of the Heartland competition, the Lochore Cup, which they won for the first time a couple of seasons back.
They already have enough competition points to be certain of a semi spot there.
Meanwhile, the 11 points scored by Glen Walters for Wairarapa-Bush against North Otago took his tally for the season to an impressive 113 and he is on track to beat the all-time scoring record for the combined unions in one season of 133 points set 24 years ago by Craig Pepperell.