RUGBY - Now we will get tough, say refs

NORTHLAND rugby referees are promising a strict start to the season by declaring war on cheats when the club season kicks off tomorrow.
A new policy of "penalise first, pow-wow later" is part of a drive to stop teams from pushing the boundaries.
They want to get the game back to being played to the letter of the law as it has been written, rather than players riding referees for verbal warnings and interpretations.
So Northland Referees Association chairman Martin Albrecht said referees had agreed to stop wasting oxygen on verbal warnings and start blowing their whistles instead.
"For a while now, ever since the game went professional, there has been this drive to entertain and referees have started to `manage' games. They tell players they are offside and to move back or to leave the ball alone because it is coming out of a ruck," Albrecht said.
"Well, that's the professionals. But at the club level I don't believe players are going out to entertain, they are going out to win the damn game. Anyhow, Martin Albrecht is not a professional referee paid to manage games for entertainment, he is just a ref who does his best," he said.
"So when I see a player offside there will be a whistle and a penalty, not a warning. The rest of the Northland referees have agreed to do the same."
There will be many other changes to the club scene on display tomorrow too.
For a start, the club competition is no longer deemed "Northland-wide" - that concept was regarded as unworkable by club delegates - but replaced with a competition that is almost a mirror image of what it was last season.
Two clubs, Mid Western and Whangarei Old Boys, have been promoted from second division at the expense of Moerewa and Awanui.
Since that decision the recruitment games have been hotly contested, the most active club being Marist who are shaping up as the championship giants. They have poached their coach (Adriaan Ferris) and five players from Wellsford.
Mid Western have been waving incentives but the bait seems to have attracted only one new player to the ranks, Chilean international prop Francesco Deforms. Old Boys have struggled to assemble a full complement.
So the battle for supremacy looks set to be a wrestle between the usual suspects, Mid Northern, Hikurangi, Hora Hora and Kamo among the candidates.
Mid Northern have welcomed back Vaughan Going, now 37 and with more than a decade of professional rugby under his belt, but have waved goodbye to Logan Going.
Johnny Sanson will coach Hikurangi but the normally formidable side has been decimated. Rhyan Caine, Gary Whippy and Dixie Harris have gone overseas.
Hora Hora and Kamo will return with very similar squads.
The Dargaville-based Western Sharks could be a dark horse but Waipu and Wellsford may struggle.