Injury forces Hawkins out

Gary Caffell
Injury has forced openside flanker Jared Hawkins out of the Wairarapa-Bush rugby team to play Thames Valley in a Lochore Cup Heartland championship rugby match at Memorial Park, Masterton on Saturday.
His place in the No.7 jersey will be taken by Joe Feast, who was such a key member of the East Coast side which won the senior first division club title this season.
Feast is not a specialist openside flanker but coach Kelvin Tantrum has been satisfied enough with what he has seen of him on the representative scene in recent weeks to express confidence in his ability to handle the role.
"He (Feast) is a rangy type of player with the speed and aggression to do the job we want," Tantrum said.
"And he'll give us an extra lineout option too."
The selection of Feast is the only change in the starting line-up from that for the match with North Otago in Oamaru last weekend.
North Otago won that game 44-19 but Wairarapa-Bush competed strongly against the Meads Cup winners from last year for all but a 10-minute period in the second half when North Otago ran in three tries.
"We played 70 minutes of really good rugby and 10 minutes where we lost our focus, that at was all there was to it." Tantrum said.
"I know it sounds like a decent hiding but it wasn't."
Tantrum has little idea what to expect from a Thames Valley side which, like Wairarapa-Bush won just one of their pool matches.
They beat East Coast 23-0 but suffered big losses to Mid-Canterbury (40-29), Wanganui (43-0), Poverty Bay (43-10) and King Country (33-14).
But he is anticipating them being in the same frame of mind as the locals who are determined to kick off their Lochore Cup campaign on a winning note.
"It's back to square one for both of us and they'll be every bit as keen to pick up maximum points as we will be," he said.
The Wairarapa-Bush team is:
Peato Lafaele; Charlie Walker-Blair, Junior Togia, Mike Shaw, Nick Olson; Patrick Rimene; Nathan Couch; Mike Spence; Joe Feast, James Measor, Tomasi Kedrabuka, Nathan Rolls; Kurt Simmonds, Joe Harwood, Dylan Higgison. Reserves: Mike Hollis, Jordon Watene, Richard Puddy, Brett Rudman or Aaron Cook, Mike Wilson, Jared Bambry, Joe Nuku.
The rugby draw for this weekend is:
SATURDAY: Wairarapa-Bush v Thames Valley, Memorial Park No.1 at 2.30pm (S.McDermott, Southland; A.Stringer, C Jefferies, S O'Gorman and A Payne); Wairarapa-Bush under-18 v Poverty Bay under-18, Memorial Park No.1 at 1pm (D.Munro Wellington; S O'Gorman, A Payne and T.Lyford).
SUNDAY: Wairarapa-Bush under-15 v South Australia under-15, Memorial Park No.1 at 1p;m (V.Peterson).