Magpies' coach mulls 'golden age' and why he'd never run at Solomone Funaki

Josh Syms believes the expectation to win is problematic for an underdog team. Photo Paul Taylor

Josh Syms says there's a pitfall to holding the Ranfurly Shield - but he wouldn't have it any other way. Ahead of tonight's quarterfinal clash with Wellington the Magpies coach chats to Mark Story about tactics and the paradox of underdog success.

Is the flipside of a lengthy Ranfurly Shield tenure that players are asked to put up a champagne game every defence, and maybe lose sight of the bigger NPC campaign?

The main issue with holding the shield is you don't get to play around with your selections too much. Essentially you've got to play your best team. I mean, the guys get up naturally for crowd games at McLean Park anyway, but we can't play with selection because if we lose we get people saying 'why did you experiment?'
Other than that it's been great, we love it. I'd say you'd struggle in the modern era to see a shield run like that again.

If you were playing the Magpies and had ball in hand, who's the player you'd avoid the most?

Solomone Funaki. I wouldn't run into him, he's made of concrete. Josh Kaifa is fantastic at the moment too with his chop tackle - those two have steel shoulders.

From my fan's seat the Magpies are the best ball-in-hand, metre-eating running-rugby exponents in the competition. Why then do we so often kick rather than run for territory?

Defences have got better. But essentially the numbers don't lie and show the teams who kick the ball most, win. That might be a statistical anomaly and people may look at it and ask 'why?'. But it can mean you put the opposition's defence in a more unstructured nature - you get the defence retreating, trying to find itself, and this tends to turn the ball over more often.

Magpies coach Josh Syms reckons Solomone Funaki is the team's most fearsome defender. Photo / NZME

Tactics aside, what's the biggest psychological barrier to winning at the Cake Tin tonight?

We've always been one of the country's favourite second teams - and we've always been a great underdog. Yet there's an expectation from everyone who comes to McLean Park that we should win, and that expectation gets quite tough.
Psychologically for us it's probably been a burden to go into games the favourite, with the pressure that we should win. And we'll be expected to beat Wellington tonight. That's challenging.

If there's something unique about this team, what is it?

I think we stumbled on the right mix at the right time. We had really young guys from Hastings' and Napier Boys' and were lucky to pair them up with veterans like Ash Dixon, Michael Allardice and Ben May. We've had a golden age and it's been a really good balance. These things go in cycles, that's the beauty of sport in that you're not at the top all the time. The shield helped a bit, and Covid helped a bit with knocking out a few teams, but life's all about timing.

What's your predicted winning margin tonight?

Just one more than them will do.

* Kick off for the Magpies v Wellington quarterfinal is today at 2.05pm.