Boss bows out on cup high

"A good muster of names" is already shaping for the post of head coach of Wairarapa-Bush's Heartland championship rugby team for the 2011 season.
Wairarapa-Bush Rugby Football Union chief executive officer Phil Taylor said interest in the position left vacant by the standing down of Kelvin Tantrum, who has held the head coach role for the past three seasons, was widespread.
"It's fair to say interest from local parties is greater than it has been for quite awhile but we've had a lot of outside interest too. We're pretty confident we'll have a good muster of names to consider," Taylor said, adding that a comprehensive new job description had arisen from questions asked by previous applicants for the head coach position. "What we've done is simply try to cover all the bases."
Meanwhile, Joe Harwood, who captained Wairarapa-Bush to their 15-9 win over Buller in the Lochore Cup final in Westport last Saturday, has confirmed his representative career has come to an end, although there seems a chance he will have at least one more season of club rugby.
Harwood told the Times-Age yesterday he was keen to help his beloved Carterton club build on progress made during the 2010 season when they won the premier division title and, if that meant turning out again in the maroon jersey in 2011, then he would "very likely" do so.
"They (Carterton) have been very good to me and if they want me to help them out then, yes, I'd probably run around again," he said.
Currently working for the WBRFU as its community rugby administrator, Harwood has a hankering to become involved in the coaching sphere in the not-too-distant future.
But his immediate thoughts are to spend more time with his family.
"Rep rugby is a big commitment timewise. No doubt I'll miss it in some ways - but not in others."
Reflecting on the Lochore Cup success, Harwood said that while the scoreline was close enough throughout the 80 minutes to never be totally sure of the end result, he was always confident Wairarapa-Bush were playing well enough to make victory an achievable objective.
"We had talked a lot about the need to stick to the game plan and everybody bought into that," he said. "We weren't always as efficient as we wanted to be but, at the end of the day, we did what we had to do to win and that's what it is all about."
For Harwood, the best part about lifting the Lochore Cup was that it provided the feature of a season where results had often been disappointing.
"We desperately wanted to finish on a high and it was pleasing to manage that, especially for the young guys who were experiencing their first taste of finals footy," he said. "They will learn a lot from that.'