Wairarapa-Bush rugby coach Peter Russell is not the sort of individual to let his frustrations get the better off him.
But he admits he came close during his team's 31-13 win over Buller in their opening Heartland championship match at Memorial Park, Masterton on Saturday.
Russell was both stunned and confused by the high penalty count inflicted on his team by Wellington referee Garrett Williamson, most of them coming in the ruck or mauls or in tackled ball situations.
"We just kept getting pinged and what made it frustrating was that quite often we didn't seem to be doing anything wrong," he said.
Russell said he had talked with Williamson after the game and the referee had admitted to making "a couple" of blunders when penalising Wairarapa-Bush."It's disappointing when you talk to your players about maintaining discipline and abiding with the rules and this sort of thing happens," Russell said. "The players get confused and annoyed and when that happens their performance level tends to drop."
While the four try to one victory was comfortably enough achieved against a Buller side well served on the score of experience in key areas, Russell himself rated the Wairarapa-Bush effort as no more than satisfactory
He felt the first half performance, in particular, was less than adequate with the Buller forwards being allowed too much latitude in the scrums and in their driving play.
"Our concentration levels weren't good enough, we were going it fits and starts," he said. "We needed to show more control, we just weren't consistent enough."
Russell was pleased with the response to that message in a second half which saw the Wairarapa-Bush pack at least gain parity in the scrums and utilise their greater mobility to telling effect in broken play.
"We have some outstanding ball runners in our forwards but they have to do the hard yards first before we can take advantage of that skill," Russell said. "It's when you've taken the edge of the opposing forwards that it really starts to count."
The Wairarapa-Bush backs might have produced their best effort of the season to date against Buller but Russell wasn't laxing lyrical about their contribution either, being quick to emphasise that some prime scoring chances had been lost through passes being fumbled or wrong options taken.
"We still need to get more accuracy into our back play, what we did on Saturday was a step up from previous games this season but again the consistency wasn't all what it should have been," he said. " To win the big games you usually have to take most of your scoring opportunities and we didn't do that."
One aspect of the Wairarapa-Bush effort which did receive a pass mark from their coach though was their defence, especially that in midfield from seasoned campaigners Nathan Couch and Simanu Simanu, whose ferocity on the tackle nipped many a Buller attack in the bud..
"Being intimidatory on defence can be such a plus for any side and those two showed just what an effect it can have on the opposition," Russell said. "When they start worrying about being crunched you've got them on the back foot."
Saturday's win, plus their four tries, gave Wairarapa-Bush the maximum five points on the competition table and they will be hot favourites to pick up another five when they played West Coast at Memorial Park this coming weekend.
But while West Coast were on the end of a 67-3 thumping from North Otago in their opening round match Russell has little difficulty recalling that it was West Coast who scored an upset win over his side in NPC third division preliminary round play last season.
"They (West Coast) will be hurting and teams in that frame of mind will often come up with big efforts next time up," he said. "We were probably a bit complacent against them last year and we lost so we know what can happen if we fall into that trap again."
Russell won't name his starting XV until later in the week but he hinted there could at least be a couple of changes from the side which initially took the field against Buller.
"Selection-wise we look at it from game to game and what the opposition might offer certainly comes into it," he said. "They (West Coast) will probably have different strengths than Buller and that's what we will be looking at."
Aww, c?mon ref!
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