Steamers winger Tino Nemani skips out of a Counties Manukau tackle. Photo / File
Following the relegation of the Bay of Plenty Steamers from the ITM rugby Premiership into the Championship, Peter White sat down with head coach Kevin Schuler to find out what went wrong and what went right this season.
PW: Looking at the statistical breakdown for the campaign, what were the key areas?
KS: We need to look at a balanced perspective around attack and defence. Our tackle numbers were not good enough. We missed 21 tackles per game and tackled at 82 per cent as opposed to Auckland who had the best figures of 18 per game at 86 per cent. The gap seems small but counts.
We needed to score more tries as we averaged 1.8 per game but the teams that did well like Canterbury scored 4.8 and Wellington 4.2 tries per game. On clean breaks we were the lowest with 4 per game while Canterbury had 14 and a lot of tries are scored off clean breaks and beating defenders and that's where we struggled.
Another key stat was in neutral carry-gain metres where we are quite a long way in front. That is not going backwards and not going forwards in possession. That comes down to your ability to bust the line, find gaps and beat defenders, which links to the clean breaks stats. We didn't stress teams enough with our running game.
Our scrum was right up there, third best behind Waikato and Canterbury, but we know we put those scrums under pressure. We know our scrum was probably one of the most attacking scrums in the comp. Lineout stats by the end of the season were middle of the road as was goalkicking and offloads. In turnovers won we were the lowest in the comp.
PW: The Steamers seemed to get penalised at the breakdown more than other teams. What is your view on why that happened?
KS: We did tend at what seemed to be critical times to have our momentum break down whether it was with an attacking or defensive infringement. We certainly tried to have a mindset where we had a couple of clear styles on defence, with the tackler rolling away and giving another guy a chance to go for the ball and on attack. Like all teams, we tried to come in through the gate.
Sometimes I disagreed with the referees and sometimes they got it right. The tough thing is if we are perceived as a team that gives away a lot of breakdown penalties. Maybe it becomes a general focus when they have a chat. Ultimately it is an area we worked on and tried to do properly. Sometimes if you are not getting the gain line that affects your angles you come into rucks and there could be a link there if we weren't getting go-forward.
PW: Which losses hurt the most?
KS: The Southland and Waikato games. Those games we were clearly in front and going okay in a position to win so they really hurt because it didn't feel like it was necessarily anything they did to us. They took their chances, admittedly. Waikato had one clear chance in the second half from a simple set-piece try.
PW: What aspects of the season are you most happy with?
KS: A lot of guys have been blooded and obviously our young front row performed pretty well and to get that level of confidence in our attacking and defensive scrums is pretty pleasing.
For guys like Kane (Hames) and Pingi (Tala'apitaga) it has been a great season for them to experience it. The whole tight five have worked hard. Carl Axtens and Joe Tupe are two young guys who have come in. Carl has been working away at his craft and went another step up in performance.
PW: What have been the biggest challenges?
KS: Dealing with injuries. We had a big chunk of our squad, and most of our experience, that played no part or little part in the campaign. The ability to close out games and handle the key championship minutes is probably a factor.
The initial planning around a larger squad and the internal competition for places was pretty hard with the injuries we had. Interestingly, 40 per cent of our budget was spent on players who between them played one game only.
PW: The make-up of the squad has garnered much discussion. When you were hit with all but two of your Super Rugby players pulling out with season-long injuries, why did you go to Australia to replace them?
KS: We looked long and hard through our club comp and our plan was local players. If you look at Beau Robinson, we found out late we were losing Lats (Tanerau Latimer) so we thought we had a player who would be at a Super level.
Albert Anae was called in when we lost three Super rugby props so thinking of the importance of the set piece, the framing of that decision was to get a Super player in like him who could play right across the front row. When we knew Lelia Masaga was going the decision was made to bring in Kimami Sitauti who was a Super level rugby player who had a bit more strike power than what we saw locally.
Eighty-two per cent of the players we picked played club rugby here, which is a real positive I think.