Club game draw tough on the fans

The Wairarapa-Bush Rugby Union's council of clubs needs to take a good hard look at their programming of premier division club games.
This is highlighted by tomorrow's draw which sees two crucial matches being played in Masterton at the same time and at different venues.
Fronting up at Memorial Park at 2.30pm will be Marist and Eketahuna while playing just up the road at Park Sportsground will be Pioneer and Carterton, kickoff there being 2.30pm as well.
Surely it would have made better sense to either schedule both these games at Memorial Park with one being curtain-raiser to the other or, failing that, to at least start one at an earlier time of say 1pm.That way the local rugby populace would have the opportunity to view both matches.
Complicating matters on the venue issue is a decision by the council of clubs to allow Pioneer to play all their home games at their own headquarters at Park Sportsground rather than have at least some of them at Memorial Park as was the case up until a season or two ago.
The wisdom of that decision can, of course, be debated on the basis that if the same rules applied to the other Masterton-based clubs, Marist and Masterton Red Star, you wouldn't actually get a premier division game played on the No.1 ground at Memorial Park until the playoff stages of the competition.
And it also comes at a cost to the WBRFU itself as whereas gate charges are made at Memorial Park they are not at the Park Sportsground.
Anyway it's something which needs to be addressed so that the best interests of rugby supporters are catered for. Ignore them at your peril.
Going into tomorrow's matches Marist and Eketahuna share fourth place on the competition table so the loser of this one will obviously do themselves no favours as far as a semi-final spot is concerned.
Even though Memorial Park does drain well it is sure to provide heavy footing after the recent spate of awful weather so it should be very much a forward slog.
From all accounts the last time these two teams met it was the Marist pack which had the edge and if they can duplicate that effort tomorrow the tactical skills of the experienced Patrick Rimene at first-five could be the deciding factor.
Carterton are second on the competition table and Pioneer third so they too have plenty to play for at the Park Sportsground.
On paper you'd anticipate Carterton calling the tune in the forwards but you need to balance that opinion with the knowledge that Pioneer have made a habit of knocking off the "big guns" this season and will relish the chance to do that again.
Give them enough quality ball to allow their outside backs to express themselves and they could beat the odds again.
The other premier division match sees competition leaders Gladstone at home to bottom placed Greytown-Tuhirangi.
The latter need to win this one to have any prospect of making the semis so they will lack nothing on the score of endeavour.
But whether they can convert that into a win against a Gladstone side with greater all-round strength is questionable, to say the least.