Massive mountain to climb for the Bush

Wairarapa-Bush are staring down the barrel of a massive defeat in their non-championship rugby match with Hawke's Bay at Napier on Monday.
That's the stark reality of a situation which sees a Wairarapa-Bush squad which may well have no regular members of last season's Heartland championship-winning squad in their starting line-up playing a Hawke's Bay side expected to include at least six players with Super 12 or 14 experience.
And Wairarapa-Bush can take little, or no, solace either from the fact the Bay will not field any of the team which thrashed another Heartland side, Poverty Bay, 97-0 on Wednesday.
Indeed their coach Peter Russell has labelled Monday's Bay side as being "on a par and possibly even stronger" than that which came within just three points of registering the magical three figures a couple of days ago.
The pleasing factor for Russell in that game was that despite the helter-skelter nature of proceedings Hawke's Bay maintained their structure, and with an eye to having his side spot on for their Air NZ Cup campaign later in the season he is looking for something similar against Wairarapa-Bush.
"It's not the final scoreline which is important but how you actually play the game," he said. "It's easy for teams to drop their levels when they get well in front but we can't afford to get into that frame of mind.
"It might not matter now but it'll cost us huge later on."
The make-up of the Hawke's Bay backline alone suggests Wairarapa-Bush are going to have their defensive strategies well and truly tested on Monday. On the wings are ACT recruit Ben Batger and Zimbabwean flier Carl Mudzamba and at centre is national sevens rep Justin Wilson. Directing operations at halfback will be former All Black Danny Lee.
In what is a big and mobile pack the standouts could be block-busting No.8 George Naoupu, aggressive lock Matt Egan and a couple of robust props in Clint Newlands and Tongan Faakanulua Paualolo.
Normally you'd expect Russell, who coached Wairarapa-Bush to their Heartland title last season and to NPC third division glory the year before, to have a good knowledge of the individual and collective strengths of Monday's opposition but that certainly won't be the case on this occasion.
Remarkably, only two regulars in last season's squad, prop Brett Rudman and flanker Mike Spence, are in the starting line-up named by new coaches Graeme Cheetham and Lofty Stevenson, and there is a 50-50 chance injury hassles will count them out anyway.
Rudman has a neck strain and Spence a hamstring strain and they are unlikely to be risked if they are not fully recovered by Monday.
Also in the process of recovering from injury is lively lock Tomasi Kedarabuka.He has been listed in the reserves for the Napier match and while he may join the action at some stage nothing definite has yet been decided in that respect.
To even describe the Wairarapa-Bush backline as "new look" would be a gross understatement.
Another couple of new caps in Jason Liverton (Puketoi) at first-five and Greg Wilson (Martinborough) on the wing have joined the squad from that beaten 49-0 by a Wellington XV a couple of weeks back and East Coast halfback Zeb Aporo, Gladstone second-five George Williams, Eketahuna centre Jon Guillard and fullback Dan White, also from Eketahuna, will all be playing just their second games at this level.
Hopes were that hard-winning Eketahuna centre Simanu Simanu would have been back on deck for this game but after recovering from an ankle injury he now has a bad bout of 'flu and is on a course of antibiotics.
Coach Cheetham knows only too well the magnitude of the task facing his team on Monday and, not surprisingly, his says the focus is not so much on winning but on being competitive.
"Most of the players will have experienced nothing like this before so they are being thrown in pretty much at the deep end," he said. "It's a huge ask but providing we can come away saying we gave it our best shot we'll be happy."