Bay wearing pink for whanau

Poverty Bay rugby players Taine Aupouri and Joe Tikicidre give their pink jerseys a test run before tomorrow’s game against Mid-Canterbury, which is at the Oval at 2.30pm. The pink jerseys are worn to draw attention to a chosen theme, which this year is “Whānau Day”.Picture by Paul Rickard

Heartland Championship action returns to the Oval tomorrow, when Poverty Bay aim to make the most of home field advantage to turn their season around.

The Civil Project Solutions Poverty Bay Wekas’ game against Mid-Canterbury starts at 2.30pm.

The Bay have one win from three games and go into Week 4 of the competition with seven points. They are in seventh place, with five teams below them on the table.

Mid-Canterbury are ninth after three matches. In Week 1, they demolished Horowhenua-Kāpiti 43-14, then lost to Ngāti Porou East Coast 19-8 at Whakarua Park in Ruatōria, and last weekend lost to North Otago 43-22.

They have no bonus points and a total of four championship points. It shows the value of bonus points for tries. Poverty Bay, with the same win-loss record, have three more points because of the bonus for scoring tries.

Player of origin Nick Patumaka, from Hawke’s Bay, will debut tomorrow and will come off the bench as front-row cover.

Second five-eighth Jacob Leaf is in good form and growing in confidence. That will help keep the backline steady. With first-five and co-captain Kelvin Smith directing traffic, the Bay have a great inside-back combination.

After last week’s 30-24 loss to Wairarapa-Bush in Masterton, Poverty Bay head coach Miah Nikora identified areas that had to be better.

This week at practice they talked about their tackle technique and improving their tackle stats, he said.

On Tuesday they worked on their ruck-defence system.

Nikora has learned about some of Mid-Canterbury’s strengths and will look to have his side disrupt them as much as possible.

“From what I’ve seen, Mid-Canterbury like to play an expansive game,” he said.

On attack, they used the power of their forward pack, where they had “some really big players”.

They also used their wings effectively on the outside.

“And we know they are going to be good around the set piece.”

The Bay would focus on being as prepared as possible for that expansive game, and combatting the Mid-Canterbury set piece.

The coaches got some good feedback from the team, and he hoped that would stand them in good stead.

For the past two years, Poverty Bay have been incorporating a “pink jersey” match into their Heartland  season, with the theme being  “for the ladies”.

This year, the theme is “Whānau Day” to put emphasis on families in the community.

People are encouraged to go to the Oval on Saturday. Entry will be free of charge, and a bouncy castle and food and coffee carts will be on hand.

“When the pink jersey was introduced in 2021 by Josh Willoughby (former Poverty Bay Rugby Football Union chief executive), we framed it as ‘Ladies Day’,” Nikora said.

The team had named the Gisborne Cancer Society as this year’s recipient of the proceeds of the auctioned pink jerseys that would go online today on Poverty Bay’s TradeMe page.

“Cancer has affected all of us in one way or another within whānau,” Nikora said.

“That was the reason for coming up with that cause.”

Named members of the players’ families will go in tomorrow to present the jerseys to the matchday 23.

Tūranga Wāhine travel to Taihape to take on Whanganui at 1pm for Week 3 of the Women’s North Island Heartland Championship and the Poverty Bay under-18 side are in Napier playing  against Whanganui at Tremaine Field with kick-off at 1pm.