Northland's loan lament

Northland coach Mark Anscombe says the union needs to become more self-reliant in their player recruitment, as he believes they're not likely to get much help from their Blues franchise partners.

Relations between the three unions have often been strained and hit another speed bump recently when a number of Auckland players were refused permission to transfer to Northland for the Air New Zealand Cup.

Former Northland flanker Justin Collins, who led Auckland to last year's NPC success, was released, while Auckland halfback David Gibson was also farmed out on loan, both partly for salary cap reasons. But Northland's advances for a handful of others were flatly turned down when the coaches and chief executives of the three unions met in May.

Wing-centre James Somerset is understood to be just one player who realised his chances would be limited at Auckland and was keen to get regular games with the Cambridge Blues.

Anscombe was keen to bring in the 21-year-old on loan but was told by Auckland this would not happen.

Somerset has yet to feature for Auckland this season, given he is behind Doug Howlett, Joe Rokocoko and David Smith. Waikato offered Solo Korovata on loan to help solve Northland's lack of strength and the speedster will line up against Otago this afternoon.

"It's just disappointing that there are a couple of guys only playing club rugby when they should be playing Air New Zealand Cup," Northland coach Mark Anscombe said. "Sometimes we get a bit too precious.

"The Blues selectors want the best players playing and we should all be working for that common goal. I don't think we are."

Anscombe said he didn't think it unreasonable for Northland to receive fringe players on loan - especially as they could ship them back mid-season if they were needed. His focus now is for Northland to build a competitive team for 2007.

"We have to be big enough to stand on our own two feet," the former North Harbour assistant added. "It's not Auckland's fault we are underpowered in certain positions.

"We have to look at our strengths and weaknesses and be smarter about how we put together our playing roster. We have to create a better set-up so players want to play for us to get an opportunity to further themselves."

Auckland chief executive Andy Dalton said they encouraged the loaning of players, particularly within the Blues region, and as recently as two weeks ago had offered a hooker to Northland when Tim Dow was injured.

"We have been talking to the coaches and are keen to establish a regional focus on the loaning of players," Dalton said. "There are two that have gone to Northland at a substantial cost to Auckland and a number of others were discussed. But for various reasons, mainly injury, the other players didn't eventuate. It wasn't through a lack of effort that these didn't get across the line."