Happy to play favourites

By RICHARD BOOCK

Greg Cooper detects no lingering aftershocks from the quake that rattled the foundations of Otago rugby last month.

Far from lying low after the shake-up, the Otago coach has happily accepted the TAB's favouritism tag for this season's NPC, saying it was good to see the confidence within his squad mirrored somewhere else.

"It's nice they have the same belief as we do, but the reality is that there's always been self-belief at Otago, and the players have always accepted that the rest is up to them," Cooper said yesterday.

"No one takes any notice of the favouritism tag because it tempts you to look down the track when all your concentration should be on the job at hand. But we're not afraid of it, either."

Cooper was watching as assistant coach this season as the Highlanders' Super 12 bid turned turtle, crippled by a players' dispute with coach Laurie Mains, and followed by the resignations of the Otago chairman Colin Weatherall and chief executive John Hornbrook.

Cooper said the atmosphere within the Otago camp was positive and buoyant, and that all involved were looking forward to a unified campaign, starting with tonight's showdown against Auckland.

"I don't believe so," he replied, when asked if Otago had inherited any of the Highlanders' end-of-season problems. "We're determined to look forward rather than back.

"We like to concentrate on things within our control, which means the upcoming game against Auckland and beyond. We can't change the past, so why pay it any attention?"

Otago, beaten by Waikato in last year's semifinal, can boast a squad dripping with Super 12 experience and should not be overly disrupted at World Cup time, given they're unlikely to lose more than two or three to the All Blacks.

Interest will surround the fitness of first five-eighth Tony Brown, who looked awkward during his Super 12 comeback this season, and the configuration of the Otago loose trio, which at present operates with Sam Harding - rather than Samiu Vahafolau, at No 8.

Explaining the decision, Cooper said he saw no logic in the two light flankers - as promoted by Wallaby's coach Eddie Jones with George Smith and Phil Waugh, because one of them always had so much further to travel.

"We've looked at it and we reckon it's better to put one of them at the back of the scrum because, after the No. 7, the No.8 is usually next to the breakdown, with the blindside flanker having to cover more ground.

"It stands to reason that if you've got a particularly quick openside, you're going to need a particularly quick No. 8 as well, and that's where Sam Harding comes into the picture."

Cooper predicted an even and eventful NPC this year, partly because of the World Cup and also because of the growing capability of teams once seen as lesser lights.

It is an issue that has also been eating at Canterbury coach Aussie McLean, who reckons that anyone still claiming the NPC is a forgone conclusion must be living on another planet.

Canterbury, like Otago, were beaten in the semifinals last season, and will be challenged this time by a mass exodus of players to the World Cup, leaving them vulnerable at the business end of the season.

Rather than worrying about the impending changes, McLean said it was another exciting time for Canterbury rugby, including the prospect of uncovering players at present unknown to the rest of the country.

"A lot of people make assumptions about how the NPC is going to go, and I find it strange, considering what happened last year," McLean said. "We were given the fright of our lives by Bay of Plenty. Southland beat Wellington and Taranaki. Taranaki beat Auckland and Otago. Waikato made all the running but Auckland won. Canterbury and Otago were thereabouts - it was a bloody good competition."

As for the loss of so many key players, McLean said Canterbury had been preparing for that eventuality since November 2001, when it became apparent how many players were likely to be affected by the World Cup.

He reckons the red and blacks now have all bases covered, and is unconcerned that the All Black draft will provide such a test for the depth of Canterbury rugby.

"That's the beauty of the NPC," said McLean. "At this time last year no one had heard of Daniel Carter, and probably not many had heard of Joe Rokocoko either."

Southland coach Phil Young is another in the "glass half full" category, in that he sees his team continually punching above their weight and perpetually playing for survival, and yet he would not be anywhere else.

"Every time a player blossoms, as was the case with Corey Flynn and Ben Herring, they're snapped up by one of the bigger provinces and that's just life for us," said Young. "You have to accept it and get on with it. Sure, we haven't got a lot of depth and there's not much experience. But we've got fantastic hometown support, it's a wonderful competition, and the guys just love pulling on that Southland jersey."

Southland finished ninth last year, just above Bay of Plenty and behind Northland, the three teams destined for another bottom-of-the-table scrap this year. Not that you want to mention that to Young.

"It's not even part of our vocabulary," he said.

"You can never be happy with coming second."