Heartland semis are next goal

Wairarapa-Bush rugby coach Kelvin Tantrum isn't fazed at the prospect of his side having to play top pool B qualifiers Poverty Bay at Gisborne in the opening round of Heartland championship Meads Cup playoff matches this coming Saturday.
And neither is he losing any sleep over them being drawn to travel to Timaru to play South Canterbury the following weekend before taking on Mid-Canterbury in Masterton on October 17.
"Quite honestly I was never worried over who we were playing or where we are playing them, " a typically frank Tantrum said yesterday "You have to take what you get, it's how you perform that counts".
To make the Meads Cup semis Wairarapa-Bush will need to win at least two of those matches ,simply because they start on the back foot through competition points achieved in pool matches being carried into the playoffs.
Defending champions Wanganui therefore kick off with 20pts, followed by Poverty Bay and Horowhenua-Kapiti on 18 , Mid-Canterbury 17, Wairarapa-Bush 14 and South Canterbury 13.
Tantrum concedes the points situation adds to the difficulty of the task confronting Wairarapa-Bush as they seek a semi-final spot but he sees no reason why they shouldn't give it a "decent crack".
"We know what we have to do and we have to go out there and do it," he said. "Yes, it's a challenge but nothing is impossible, we need to play well three times, that's it in a nutshell".
Even being in contention for Meads Cup honours does, of course, already represent a major improvement for Wairarapa-Bush from last year when they found themselves in the second tier Lochore Cup competition, and were eliminated in the semi-finals there. That gave them an overall seeding of ninth equal and they can do no worse than sixth this time round.
Tantrum is not the least surprised at the progress made, saying the pre-Heartland preparation was so much better this year and the squad as a whole had greater depth than it did last season.
"It would have been frustrating not to make the Meads Cup, that was always the first objective", he said. "Now we are there we have to aim higher, the semis are the next goal and that's achievable too".
Victory over Buller in the last of their pool A matches on Saturday was a must for Wairarapa-Bush if Meads Cup qualification was to be managed and Tantrum was understandably pleased with their 28-13 winning effort, particularly in the manner in which they held their structure against a Buller side always looking to attack.
"We didn't want to get involved in any frilly sort of stuff, we wanted to stay composed and pick up enough points for the win along the way," Tantrum said. "It was good, basic rugby and that's what we do best.;........we're not the sort of team which is going to regularly run in tries from all over the place."
Tantrum did concede, however, that Wairarapa-Bush should "very probably" have scored six tries rather than the three they recorded with spilled passes being the main culprit "We tended to rush things a little just as tries looked on, the finishing could have been better."
While the starting line-up for the Poverty Bay match this coming weekend won't be confirmed until later in the week the odds strongly favour Tantrum and his co-selectors Neil Foote and Steve Hurley staying with the status quo.
Indications are they don't have any injury problems to worry about and the normal headache over which one of their "loan " players will have to be left won't be a hassle over the next two weeksd because midfield back Siaosi Anamani is on an Institute of Sport trip to the United States.
Anamani did not play against Buller and the midfield combination used there, Sam Mitchell at second-five and Heemi Tupaea at centre, seems certain to be retained for Gisborne.
A huge plus for Wairarapa-Bush from Saturday's match was that key players Duncan Law at No.8 and Byron Karaitiana at first-five, successfully bounced back from their injury woes.
Law , who had been sidelined for three matches with a hamstring strain, was all aggression in his running and tackling and would have been the front runner for any player of the match award while if Karaitiana was somewhat subdued by his sore shoulder he came though the assignment without any noticeable side effects..His three penalties and two conversions took his Heartland points tally to 62.
Wairarapa-Bush have already played Poverty Bay once this season, losing 25-14 in a " friendly " also played in Gisborne. They competed strongly right up until the last quarter when a couple of late tries saw the losing margin blow out to double figure proportions.
In heading pool B of the Heartland championship Poverty Bay had the four wins and just the one loss,beating King Country (26-20), North Otago (18-10), Mid-Canterbury (24-19) and Thames Valley (27-22) and losing to South Canterbury ( 14-16).
Interestingly enough the two teams which topped their pools, Wanganui and Poverty Bay, both suffered just the one defeat and they came at the hands of the teams which will start off at the bottom of the Meads Cup playoff points table, Wairarapa-Bush and South Canterbury respectively.