Poor option-taking leads to loss

Poor option-taking cost Wairarapa-Bush dearly in their Heartland championship rugby match with Buller at Memorial Park, Masterton on Saturday.
A hard-fought contest which never rose to great heights as a spectacle ended with Buller winning 11-8 and deservedly so because they were tactically smarter than the home side.
How the team playing into the strong breeze coped with that challenge was always likely to play a big part in the end result and Buller clearly took the honours there.
The visitors faced the elements in the first 40 minutes and would have gone to the halftime break in a confident frame of mind after conceding no more than the penalty kicked after 13 minutes by Wairarapa-Bush first-five Patrick Rimene.
Buller's tactics through that spell had revolved hugely around the ball-carrying skills of big No.8 Jo Yalayala who was constantly used as a battering ram from the base of the scrum and around the fringes of the rucks and mauls.
Invariably it took at least a couple of defenders to halt his progress and just as invariably he made 15 to 20 metres before being grounded.
And if it wasn't Yalayala running the ball back at the opposition it was fellow loosies Luke Brownlie or Phil Rossiter or lively lock Casey Gibson.
In essence then their concentration while playing into the wind was on keeping the ball in hand with the impressive inside combination of Andrew Stephens and Nathan Thompson only occasionally looking to kick for position & a very difficult art in the conditions.
Wairarapa-Bush, for their part, didn't seem to have any clear pattern in their tactical approach. They were a mix of moving the ball by hand and kicking for position and, unfortunately, they too often ended up taking the worst of the two options.
Having said that they did though actually come close to scoring tries on at least a couple of occasions with strong-running wing Charlie Walker-Blair once appearing to lose control of the ball while in the process of forcing it down.
He and fellow wing Junior Togia were always dangerous when given any room in which to move, dangerous enough, in fact, to suggest that if Wairarapa-Bush adopted the same tactics into the wind as Buller the brilliance of those two with ball in hand could be of match winning proportions.
Strangely, however, the Wairarapa-Bush game plan in the second half provided only scant opportunity for their outside backs to demonstrate their attacking skills.
The forwards battled hard enough against the feisty Buller pack to attain a reasonable share of quality possession but the bulk of it was kicked straight down the throats of Buller defenders, who showed their thanks by returning it with interest. Cries of "put the boots away" often rang out from the grandstand from frustrated Wairarapa-Bush supporters but all to no avail.
Highlighting the senselessness of that approach was the fact that on one of the few occasions Wairarapa-Bush moved the ball through their backs they came up with the best try of the match, scored by Togia after slick passing from halfback Mike Hollis, first-five Rimene and fullback Peato Lafeale.
That try gave Wairarapa-Bush an 8-3 lead Buller's Thompson having kicked a penalty just after halftime but soon after Buller equalised when they too strung some nice passes together and wing Mitieli Kaloudigibeci capitalised on the overlap created for him. And the final scoring act came when Thompson was given the chance to kick for goal from 30m out and he made no mistake.
While the option taking was clearly the worst aspect of the Wairarapa-Bush performance there were others which will also need rectifying if they are to stay in contention for the Meads Cup playoffs a little further down the track.
Up front the scrum struggled for stability at times and there was too much tapping down of lineout ball, especially in the first half. Buller were clearly intent on double teaming Tomasi Kedrabuka in that department and while Kedrabuka was typically resilient in his response he needs greater support there. Maybe the return of Nathan Rolls, who came off the reserves bench in the second half, will help in that respect.
The indecisiveness of the Wairarapa-Bush backs on the counter attack has to be a concern too. They seemed unsure on numerous occasions whether to run or kick and by the time they made up their minds the Buller defence had usually engulfed them.
Kedrabuka, whose determination in lineout play was matched by the determination of his running in broken play, was a standout player for Wairarapa-Bush and other forwards to shine were young prop Kurt Simmonds, who used his strength to good effect in the mauls, flanker Jared Hawkins, who had a huge tackle rate, and No.8 Mike Spence who usually got himself over the advantage line in his many surging runs.
Wingers Togia and Walker-Blair were the pick of the backs although one couldn't question the courage of halfback Mike Hollis, who often found himself on the back foot when receiving the ball from the set pieces but still generally managed to clear it efficiently.
The Wairarapa-Bush's Bs always looked the better side in their curtain-raiser match with Wanganui B but a late try allowed the visitors to sneak a 22-21 win.
Loose forwards Sully Alsop, Steve Wilkinson and Joe Nuku and lock Andrew McLean starred for Wairarapa-Bush up front and halfback Joe Hull, second-five John Guillard and wing Lance Stevenson shone in the backs.
Alsop and Kayne Nooroa were the try scorers for Wairarapa-Bush with Byron Karaitiana kicking three penalties and a conversion.