Steelform Wanganui's key men in the pivot roles will want to put in one more big effort for 2015 when the New Zealand Heartland XV plays their series decider against the confident Australian Barbarians at Cooks Gardens tonight.
The Barbarians have their tails up after the first game at Levin Domain on Tuesday, coming from 32-19 down entering the final quarter to hit the lead 38-32 with five minutes remaining and holding on in front of their goal posts to win.
Heartland coach Grant Keenan has retained a settled line-up from the match, with only Fraser Hammond's broken hand keeping him out of the team, replaced by Thames Valley's Hayden Anderson at blindside flanker.
The other Wanganui players will all start - Cole Baldwin at hooker, Peter Rowe captaining the team from openside flanker, Bryn Hudson at No8 and Lindsay Horrocks and Stephen Perofeta as the halfback and first-five partnership.
For gifted teenager Perofeta, who has scored 44 points in two games for the Heartland team, this is likely to be his swansong to Wanganui rugby - playing on his home ground before departing next year for Taranaki and the Clifton club.
Both Perofeta and Horrocks shone with some good attacking options in Levin, but the issue for the best players from New Zealand's amateur unions when taking on a mixture of fulltime and semi-professionals, is maintaining their energy levels come the crunch point in the match.
The Barbarians, like the NZ Marist XV on Saturday in Masterton, were able to run down Heartland's big lead.
"We're mindful it is our third game in six days, so we have to make sure we use the bench," said Keenan.
"We'd like to [close it out]. But they've played [against] Super Rugby players for ten weeks, they're used to high intensity.
"I was talking to their coach afterwards and he said they focused on trying to move us around.
"We've got plenty of fuel in the tank, the boys have recovered well."
Baldwin will want a strong match with his lineout throws, as will Rowe after Levin was a tough physical ask coming back following his enforced break from the Marist game.
Based at the IRANZ Academy in Palmerston North, Keenan said the team has done a lot of video review from the first game.
"We just worked on our defence around the Australian short lineout, they had multiple options there.
"The other thing was kick receives - from our tries, we got two from kick receives."
Despite rain yesterday, weather conditions are expected to be fine today with southerly breezes, although even if the climate returned to the last stand of a Kiwi winter, Keenan believes the Australians could still handle it.
"There was a bit of wind in Levin on Tuesday, quite strong one way. I thought they possibly wouldn't like the conditions.
"As long as the rain stays away and the wind doesn't pick up, it shouldn't be too much of a factor."
There is also the small matter of transtasman rugby rivalry, because at any level of the game, Keenan agreed it would not sit well in a New Zealand player's stomach to be 0-1 down in a two match series.
"No, they don't. But the way the boys trained today, you didn't need to mention any of that."
Like Wanganui having the strongest representation in the Heartland squad, the Australian Barbarians are heavily influenced by the NSW Country Eagles, with eight in the 23-man squad for tonight, who are captained by hooker Ryan Dalziel.
The Eagle's Darren Coleman shares the coaching role with Brad Harris (Canberra Vikings).
There are four Vikings in the team, along with four others from the Greater Sydney Rams.
From the Brisbane City team - which won the 2015 National Rugby Championship from which the Barbarians were chosen - there are just two representatives, although the City team was laden with Super Rugby-contracted players who were not selected for this tour.
Kickoff this evening is 6pm.
The halftime entertainment will be the 2000m road race featuring some of Wanganui's most promising teenaged athletes.