Eight-man rugby not part of Rutene's plan

Byron Karaitiana must fight for a place.

Wairarapa-Bush will be ready for a physical assault from West Coast in their Heartland championship rugby match at Memorial Park, Masterton, on Saturday, but won't necessarily fight fire with fire.

West Coast are known to pride themselves on their pack's ruggedness and it was their engine room which paved the way for their 23-17 defeat of reigning Lochore Cup champions Buller last weekend, and successful Seddon Shield challenge against Nelson Bays this month.

While confident in the ability of his forwards to muscle up to their West Coast opposites in the tighter exchanges, coach Mark Rutene sees their mobility as perhaps the greatest asset on this occasion. So the less time they spend in the set pieces the better.

"We don't want a game which is all scrums and lineouts. We want to move their forwards around the paddock and give their lungs a decent workout," Rutene said.

For that approach to work, however, he concedes the Wairarapa-Bush forwards will need to be more proficient in their ball retention than during the 20-18 win over North Otago in Oamaru last Saturday, especially in the first half.

"We turned over too much ball in that first 40 minutes simply because the support play wasn't good enough, and we can't afford that to happen against a team like West Coast," he said.

"Ball protection is crucial if you want to keep phases going. You don't gain much if you just go a couple of phases and give it to the opposition," Rutene said.

"A team like West Coast will feed off your mistakes, so we've got to keep them to a minimum."

The big plus about the Wairarapa-Bush tactics is that it will give their much-vaunted loose trio of James Goodger, Johan Van Vliet and Nathan Iro every opportunity to express themselves in the game.

They are all powerful runners with ball in hand, especially Iro, and the pace of Goodger and Van Vliet should guarantee they are a menace at the breakdowns.

It would be wrong to think Wairarapa-Bush will get everything their way in the loose, for West Coast have a rampaging runner of their own in big No8, Suamalie Tuiletuguga, while flanker Rowan O'Gorman, on loan from Canterbury, was player of the day against Nelson Bays.

It might be in the backs where Wairarapa-Bush make the most headway in an attacking sense. West Coast seem likely to rely heavily on the boot of first-five Tim Priest to give them territorial advantage and if Wairarapa-Bush can get wingers Cameron Hayton and Nathan Hunt and fullback Nick Olson into the action on a regular basis, then their combination of speed and flair could be the vital difference between the sides.

The Wairarapa-Bush starting line-up for Saturday's game is likely to almost mirror that for the North Otago clash, with the main question-marks being at prop, where the choice will be between in-form players Campbell Lawrence and Jon Fuamoano, at halfback, where there are three contenders in Zeb Aporo, Joseph Sio and Inia Katia, and at second-five, where it will virtually be a toss of the coin between Byron Karaitiana and Tapaga Isaac.