New coach happy with progress

New Wairarapa-Bush rugby coach Kelvin Tantrum is making encouraging noises about the potential of the 31-strong squad named to prepare for non-championship matches against Wellington, Hawke's Bay and Manawatu.
While freely conceding that he himself is still learning about the capabilities of the region's top players Tantrum has liked what he has seen of them on the club scene and sees no reason why they shouldn't make a decent impact at a higher level.
"Overall I'd have to say I am happy where we are at&..&. obviously there is a lot of work to do to knock things into the shape we want but the potential is there to make a competitive unit and that's what we're after," he said.
Tantrum is adamant, however, that the squad announced yesterday is not necessarily that which will prepare for the Heartland championship matches later in the season.
He said it was based around current form and did not include a number of players who very probably had the skills to be part of the Heartland team but who had been overlooked either because of fitness concerns or a desire by the management team to watch their progress in further club matches before committing them to representative play.
"The selection door is still wide open, we want to make it clear that players could be added or deleted at any time," he said. "It's early days yet, noone should take anything for granted."
Asked if he had detected any specific areas of concern in club rugby, Tantrum said fitness seemed to be an obvious issue with the gap between the players who were intent on pressing for Wairarapa-Bush selection and others who were not so inclined being very apparent.
"I'd have to say the overall standard of fitness has been disappointing and it is handing an adverse effect on the standard of play," he said. "When players aren't fit they start taking short cuts and the skill factor suffers and they also make it harder for the fitter ones to shine. The flow on effect isn't what you want it to be."
Tantrum said the fitness hassles were probably a major contributing factor too in why most of the club games seemed to be forward-orientated with teams realising that moving the ball wide could expose their deficiencies in that respect.
"I'm not trying to say that every team is the same but generally the emphasis seems to have been on physical confrontation up front more than anything else," he said.
Tantrum said this situation had not only meant many of the outside backs had received little opportunity to display their wares but it had also made it difficult for openside flankers to range wide and show their full armoury of skills.
"The No.7's haven't been quite as prominent as we would like them to be and that's something we will have to address pretty quickly," he said. "It's important they get around the paddock, it's not a position for one-dimensional players."
The current Wairarapa-Bush squad is.-Backs: Tiari Mahuri, Heemi Tupaea, Phil Aporo, Nick Olson, Jordan Watene, Mike Shaw, Nathan Couch, Jimmy Boyle, Lance Stevenson, Patrick Rimene, Dean Grant, Zeb Aporo, Mike Hollis, James Bruce.Forwards: Duncan Law, Mike Spence, Sully Alsop, Mike Wilson, Jared Hawkins, Steve Wilkinson, Andrew McLean, Tomasi Kedrabuka, Norm Henricksen, Dan Griffin, Jeremy Sargent, Richard Puddy, Joe Harwood, Kurt Simmonds, Dylan Higgison, Mo Liemainelau, Brett Rudman.