GLADSTONE have good reason to fancy their chances of pushing defending champions Eketahuna all the way in their Tui Cup premier division rugby match at Gladstone tomorrow.
The home side kicked off their campaign with a hard-fought 19-11 victory over Carterton last weekend and will be keen to reverse the result of last year's grand final when a second-half blitz by Eketahuna saw them take away the spoils.
Gladstone's best chance of victory on this occasion probably lies in the ability of their forwards to dominate possession and therefore restrict the influence had on the game by an Eketahuna rearguard including two of the best attackers in the competition, Sam Monaghan and Paul Tikomainavalu.
There is enough experience in the Gladstone pack to successfully meet that challenge. Lock Andrew McLean and hooker Richard Puddy are two who like nothing better than a physical confrontation and John Stevenson is of similar ilk. If they can largely quell the fire in the Eketahuna eight and at the same time give elusive runners like Inia Katia and Cameron Hayton in their own backline the chance to strut their stuff what would be a minor upset could be on the cards.
Greytown chalked up over a half-century of points against Martinborough in their opening game but they can anticipate sterner opposition from East Coast in their clash at Whareama. East Coast might only have a handful of last season's squad back in action again, but they gave Eketahuna a whale of a game before losing 13-10 in their opening encounter and will have taken huge confidence from that result. Interestingly it was two ex-East Coast players in Byron Karaitiana and Nick Olson who were prominent on the scorecard for Greytown last weekend. The southerners do have good depth at both back and forward, certainly enough to have them start warm favourites to make it two on end.
