Cheetham puts hand up for job

Graeme Cheetham will be putting his name in the hat for the role of selector-coach of the Wairarapa-Bush rugby side for the 2008 season.
"I thought we might have done well enough for that to happen but I'm not wanting to make a big thing about it."
Cheetham and Lofty Stevenson were co-coaches when Wairarapa-Bush made it through to the semi-finals of the Meads Cup section in this year's championship but with Stevenson planning to head to Germany in February the WBRFU board has announced the coaching position is again up for grabs.
It's a situation which Cheetham understands on the basis that he and Stevenson were a dual appointment given a one-season contract but, at the same time, he admits to being a "little disappointed" that he was not offered a second term, only this occasion on his own account.
"I thought we might have done well enough for that to happen but I'm not wanting to make a big thing about it," he said.
"Nothing was ever guaranteed for next season though so it wasn't really surprising."
Cheetham is no stranger, of course, to being the "boss" in a coaching sense, having taken the Eketahuna club to three successive Wairarapa-Bush senior first division titles and he believes he could successfully fill a similar role at Heartland championship level as well.
"I don't see too many hassles, I guess there is a bit more responsibility but nothing which worries me," he said.
Cheetham is aware of talk that after his triumphs with Eketahuna, and with the Wairarapa-Bush colts which followed, he should have gone it alone when applying for the Wairarapa-Bush Heartland coaching position last season but he is adamant his partnership with Stevenson worked well. He said Stevenson had been a "great help" in assisting him at Eketahuna and it was simply a matter of course for the two of them to join forces for the Wairarapa-Bush post.
"Lofty breathes and lives for his rugby and he has a vast knowledge of the game.
"We've always got on well and the co-coach idea seemed the obvious way to go. "Yes, we did have the odd debate about certain things but there were no problems, none at all.
Working together meant we both had a sounding board, and there's a lot of value in that."
Cheetham said he and Stevenson had come to agreement early on they would do everything possible to ensure that local talent was given every chance to express themselves on the representative scene, that despite the fact the bulk of the previous season's Heartland championship-winning squad were no longer available.
"It was always our view that if we were to build the profile of Wairarapa-Bush rugby from club level upwards we had to encourage players to reach certain standards, and I think we managed to achieve that," he said.
With Stevenson now out of the equation Cheetham is currently in the process of considering the names of those who could be part of his "support crew" next season should he be appointed again to the coaching role.
These would probably include an assistant coach and a manager.
Until he gets a definite "yes" from them he isn't about to name names but he said they would all be people currently involved in Wairarapa-Bush rugby.
"I don't see any need to go outside the area & we've got a lot of people here who could do a good job and they deserve the chance," he said.