GROUP HUG: The Rovers are upbeat after winning the Central League crown but they'll be without Harry Morton today. PHOTO/Duncan Brown
GROUP HUG: The Rovers are upbeat after winning the Central League crown but they'll be without Harry Morton today. PHOTO/Duncan Brown
THE WORD is the Western Suburbs team will be wearing a red-and-blue strip in their Chatham Cup quarterfinal match in Wellington this afternoon.
For coach Declan Edge and his men (or should that be boys if what Suburbs members claim is anything to go by?) it'll probably be only the third time they will wear the red tops and blue shorts at home this season.
That means the TSB Bank-sponsored Napier City Rovers, who wear blue at home and red away, have had to scramble to find white strips for today's 2pm kick off at Endeavour Park No 1, Wellington.
Former All White international Edge didn't return phone calls but suffice it to say the Bill Robertson-coached Rovers weren't about to add fuel to any fire to the knockout match in the battle of national supremacy.
Says Blues skipper Danny Wilson: "We know they will be wearing a different strip and we will adapt."
It goes without saying the Hawke's Bay visitors, who were crowned 2015 Lotto Central League champions last Sunday at Park Island, Napier, won't let such tactics put them off their stride.
In fact, it's safe to assume they will have no qualms about running on to the grass paddock - in a region fast converting to Astroturf territory - bare back and without boots to prove a point or two.
Such is the confidence level of Rovers, who have a shadow ASB Premiership (national summer league) look about them this winter, that anything shy of a league and Chatham Cup double will be deemed to be an underachievement.
But centreback Wilson throws caution to the wind, blissfully aware underdogs have an air of unpredictability about them and fellow Central League campaigners Suburbs have the propensity to rise to the occasion in a bid to do the unthinkable.
"I wouldn't say they're a small team but they're a good club and they're at home in Wellington so they'll be a different story."
Harry Morton returned to his US varsity this week. Fane Morgan comes into the equation.
MIND GAMES? Declan Edge. PHOTO/FILE
Edge isn't shy about entering a mental maze before, during or after games.
A disciple of the passing game, he has kept the suburbs in second place in the league.
In fact, the Suburbs senior club coach Danny Fearon last night revealed the cup side had five schoolboys in the 18-man squad but hastened to add a 15-year-old had scored a goal in the 3-2 victory over coach Ernie Merrick's Wellington Phoenix in the A-Leaguers' pre-season match.
Fearon said Suburbs often wore white strips in home matches or red and black but after a decade the club was returning to its traditional red top and blue shorts.
"Look, we play in white kits at home so there's no need for us to change but I can't say anything on behalf of Declan," he said with a laugh, adding it wouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that Edge was capable of engaging in mind games.
The new colours only clashed with Stop Out this winter so Western Suburbs in that game opted to play in whites.
Fearon said they were expecting up to 300 parochial fans today against a side that had walloped them 5-1 at Bluewater Stadium in the league.
The Rovers, he emphasised, were "very, very good" and "expected to win" while Suburbs were working on a three-year project to emulate the Blues' feat this winter.
He alluded to ex-Liverpool player Alan Hansen, renowned for coining the phrase: "You can't win anything with kids."
Manchester United proved Hansen wrong in 1995-96, claiming the league and cup double. "I think they [Man Utd] sent him several T-shirts with those words on it."
