Mahoney to captain capital

Black Fern Rebecca Mahoney will captain Wellington Pride in the 2011 national provincial women's rugby competition and will have six of her Eketahuna clubmates under her command.
The huge representation from Eketahuna is hardly surprising considering they won the Wellington premier division title on Saturday, beating defending champions Norths 12-8 in fiercely contested grand final.
Celebrations for that history-making success had to be put on hold-at least to some degree because nine of the Eketahuna team were also involved in a trial match on Sunday after which the Wellington squad was named.
No fewer than five of the Eketahuna backs made the cut, first-five Mahoney, second-five Maia Tua-Davidson, centre Shakira Baker and Heidi Whitman and fullback-cum-halfback Tatiana Tafatu.
They were joined by two of the forwards, flanker Shaan Waru and No8 Emma Aldworth. Missing out were halfback Laura Gavin and prop Kelly Hunt, both of whom Mahoney considered to be very unlucky.
Wellington will play a warm-up match against a Barbarians XV in Wellington this coming weekend before commencing their NPC programme with matches against Otago and Auckland.
Mahoney, who will be in her first year as skipper, believes they have the potential to be a serious contender for the major spoils although she sees the tactical approach being somewhat different than it has been in more recent times.
Generally the emphasis has been on controlling the forward exchanges and having the backs focussing on keeping their pack on the front foot but Mahoney sees the attacking skills of the backs as perhaps being their main attribute this time round.
"I think we will be running the ball more than we have in the past, we've got a lot of flair and pace there and we will want to make the most of it,"she said.