“Aleki [Vakarorogo] is back and Ethan [Robinson] is back. They could have played last week, to be fair, but we took a cautious approach to it.
“If Aleki is injury-free, history tells us he’s one of the best players in the Heartland comp for the last two to three years.”
Both Vakarorogo (42) and Robinson (45) could play their 50th games this campaign if they stay injury-free. Vakarorogo’s strike rate of 38 tries is quite phenomenal.
Also missing the Centurions match, last year’s flanker-captain Jamie Hughes (79) and lock Matt Ashworth (34) return, with Hughes on the reserves as powerful loose forward Ekenasio Fiso has impressed in pre-season play.
Experienced lock Peter-Travis Hay-Horton will miss at least this week’s game as his long injury recovery continues.
“PT’s still got a medical clearance issue we have to tidy up, so we just have to see how we land on that,” said Hamlin.
“Looking at him running around, he’s close.
“We just got to get them all on the park at the same time.
“They’ll give us some more stuff and the ability to hopefully play to script a little more, if that’s what’s working, or the experience to say, ‘we need to do something else here’.”
A niggle for new prop Finley Ocheduszko Brown keeps him away from the 10 players who will make their official Whanganui debuts, with Faafetai Pulemagafa and Ross McDonald the confirmed first-choice front row, backed up by Jonty Bird and Renato Tikoisolomone.
Historically, Shaun O’Leary will become the first player since Nick Harding to be a Whanganui “double rep”, having debuted in the senior cricket team in 2021 at the end of his final year at Whanganui Collegiate.
“We want to play to our strengths we have in the squad and that’s the reason we selected those kids, no point in playing away from it,” said Hamlin.
After a proud history with three Meads Cup and two Lochore Cup victories in the Heartland Championship, North Otago are looking to climb back from a horror 2024 where a 2-6 record resulted in them missing finals for the first time in 18 seasons of the competition.
Their pre-season was marked by an impressive 47-24 win over regular opponents Otago Country.
“Traditionally, they’re just strong, they’ll have a bit of class and a bit of x-factor around themselves somewhere,” said Hamlin.
“[We’re] Just expecting a big tough game, and some of our boys will be having first-up runs.
“It’s having those new guys keep taking those steps towards being comfortable at this level.
“We go down to South Canterbury in three or four weeks’ time, you want to be [ready].
“You can’t win it in the first couple of weeks, but you can go a long way to making it hard for yourself.”
Kickoff is at 1.30pm.
