Pride must lift game - Mahoney

Wellington Pride skipper Rebecca Mahoney is expecting no favours from Auckland in the NPC women's rugby match to be played in Auckland tomorrow.
A Wellington side, including seven Eketahuna players, walloped Otago 57-0 last weekend but Mahoney recognises they will need to go up several notches to foot it against an Auckland combination that kicked off their NPC campaign with a 70-point thrashing of Manawatu.
A sentiment impossible to dispute when you consider Auckland could have as many as a dozen Black Ferns in their starting line-up. One which Mahoney believes could work to Wellington's advantage.
"The pressure is all on them, everybody will be expecting them to win, " she said. "For us, there is really no pressure at all, we can go out there and enjoy ourselves."
Mahoney, a Black Fern herself, was captaining Wellington for the first time in the Otago match and, while she admits they took a while to hit top gear, she was pleased with their overall effort.
"They [Otago] didn't have a lot of experience but they worked hard and made it tough for us early on. But once we settled down, we ran in some good tries, it was a nice enough start."
Eketahuna flanker Shaan Waru scored one of Wellington's tries and was singled out by Mahoney as a most impressive performer. "She was everywhere on attack and defence, she's got a huge future."