It will take a near-miracle for Puketoi to remain in this season's Wairarapa-Bush premier division rugby competition.
So says coach Jamie Fowler after his team were forced to default against Featherston at Featherston last Saturday through a shortage of players.
"At best, we could have fielded 13 and even that might have
been a struggle," Fowler said, adding that getting the full 15 on the park had been a huge battle all season. "Every week, we seem to have a decent list of unavailabilities and injuries, and we simply don't have the back-up to cope with that."
A special meeting to decide Puketoi's future was planned for their Pongaroa clubrooms tonight. While Fowler wasn't ruling out the chances of them seeing out the remainder of the 2011 season, he thought it was unlikely.
"I don't want to be negative but we probably need to have at least five or six players coming out of the woodwork and, quite frankly, I can't imagine where they would come from," he said.
If Puketoi withdraw, the number of premier division sides will be reduced to 10. The WBRFU's council of clubs will need to decide how that will affect the draw and points system for the rest of the first round, as well as the format of the main championship, which is initially being played in two pools.
The original intention was to have six teams in one pool and five in the other but if Puketoi are out of the reckoning, then it will be five teams in each pool.
