Pride on line - Rutene

Wairarapa-Bush are going to have a "decent crack" at North Otago in their Heartland championship rugby match in Oamaru tomorrow.

With North Otago having won all three of their Heartland games and Wairarapa-Bush still to break their "duck" favouritism will fall heavily to the home team and it will be a huge surprise if they don't win by a comfortable margin.

But according to head coach Mark Rutene if Wairarapa-Bush are to be beaten they will at least go down fighting.

"The intention is to have a decent crack at them, to go out there and put everything on the line," Rutene said.

There are two notable changes in the Wairarapa-Bush pack from the eight which initially took the field in the loss to Buller last weekend, one of them forced and the other by choice.

Skipper Joss Tua-Davidson has not recovered sufficiently from his knee injury to take his place at No8 and has been replaced by Lee Ewe, who will be making his debut in the starting XV.

And at hooker Jake Tipene, an "import" from the Bush Sports club, comes in for Campbell Lawrence who, interestingly enough, is not even in the reserves.

Understudying Tipene will be Tereina McLean.

Rutene and assistant coach Steve Thompson were still mulling over their backline options at the time these notes were penned but they were committed to starting Inia Katia for the first time at halfback and placing fellow Fijian Michael Vuicikau on the wing.

The biggest headache was choosing who to be at first-five out of Trent Vatselias and Zeb Aporo. That Vatselias will be in the starting line-up is guaranteed but the temptation could be to try him in midfield or at fullback to boost the visitors' attacking potential.

A possible Wairarapa-Bush team is: Nick Olson, Michael Vuicikau, Heemi Tupaea, Tommy Harmon, Jesse McGilvary; Trent Vatselias; Inia Katia; Lee Ewe; Johan Van Vliet, Andrew McLean, Brandon Young, James Goodger; Brendan Walker, Jake Tipene, Kurt Simmonds. Reserves: Zeb Aporo, Sam Mitchell, Greg Dennes, Jared Hawkins, Rupeni Tamani, Wilba Davies, Tereina McLean.