RUGBY: Pre-season success welcome but imports urgently sought

A six-try pre-season victory over Manawatu is proving a timely boost but the battle to gain some reinforcements for the start of the Air NZ Cup provincial campaign is proving a distraction for the Northland rugby team.
Northland beat Manawatu 34-22 in Palmerston North on Saturday, banking a rare pre-season success, in a performance that will inject some much-needed confidence into the players.
But efforts to try to nail down import players from Auckland to bolster the squad are now becoming a distraction with the final Northland squad about to be announced.
"We have two players in mind but getting the decision made is proving to be quite tricky," says coach Mark Anscombe.
"It will be solved by Wednesday either way but at this stage we have still got some issues to sort out. There are several difficulties at this time of year trying to sort this stuff out," he said.
Anscombe wants a tighthead prop and is also on the lookout for another utility back to add to the Northland squad. But with just one more pre-season game left before the championship starts there are still no signs of any players arriving.
He is expected to reveal his first-pick team when they play Counties-Manukau at Pukekohe in the last pre-season fixture on Saturday. But he will be forced to delay naming his final representative squad until import negotiations are complete.
Not that the current Northland squad members aren't performing.
On Saturday winger Glenn Martin scored two tries while fullback Hayden Taylor marked his return from injury with a touchdown as well.
Flanker Joel McKenty underlined his value at openside flanker with a try and the scrum, with Bronson Murray continuing his development as a tighthead prop, was a solid base to attack from. Dan Bowden also scored a try for Northland. Bowden and Holwell added conversions.
Northland were ahead 22-17 at halftime and got the upper hand with tries to Taylor and lock Dan Goodwin in the second spell. Manawatu only managed one try in reply in the second half.
But while pleased to notch up a win, and score a hatful of tries in the process, Anscombe still had some concerns, chiefly around defence at second phase play and from turnovers.
Pre-season opposition was not a gauge of what is coming in championship fixtures, he said.
"We are showing promise but in the bigger picture of things I don't think Manawatu are going to be top six contenders. Pre-season games are hard to measure; what do any of the pre-season results tell us when Bay of Plenty had to score an intercept try to beat Manawatu last week and then Taranaki beat Waikato the week after they got thumped by Hawke's Bay?" he said.
Northland needed to react better to what the opposition was doing to them.