Rugby boss sings Cheethams praises

Eketahuna Rugby Club boss Dennis Dougherty is "extremely disappointed" in the decision of the Wairarapa-Bush Rugby Union board to axe Graeme Cheetham as coach of their senior representative side for the 2008 season.
Cheetham co-coached Wairarapa-Bush with Lofty Stevenson to fourth place in the Meads Cup section of the Heartland championship last year, a stunning effort considering they introduced as many as 15 newcomers to that level of the game but not good enough to see Cheetham retain his job. Instead he and Stevenson (who did not re-apply because he is heading to Germany in February) have been replaced in the head coaching role by former Western Samoan international Earl Va'a, who is believed to have been given a two year contract.
"His record speaks for itself."
Dougherty said Cheetham's dumping was not only a blow for the man himself but for Wairarapa-Bush rugby in general as he was a locally-based coach with a record which proved he could produce the goods on a consistent basis.
"You can't argue with what he has achieved, it's all there for people to see," Dougherty said. "His record speaks for itself".
Dougherty recalled Cheetham taking over as coach of the Eketahuna club's senior first division team and after them finishing sixth in the Wairarapa-Bush premier competition in that first year they had improved to be runners-up the next year and then winners three seasons in succession.
"Cheety always impressed upon the players the benefits of hard work and discipline and his results with us were proof of his ability to get that message across," he said.
Dougherty said it was difficult to fathom how the WBRFU board could be anything but satisfied with the way their premier side had performed under Cheetham and Stevenson this year. Having just the one-year contract and so many new faces to Heartland rugby they were basically on a hiding to nothing, yet had largely overcome the odds to make the Meads Cup semi-finals.
"If they could do that in the first year with such a young and largely inexperienced side then you'd have to think the team was in good hands, wouldn't you?" he said.
Dougherty believes Cheetham's chances of being reappointed should also have been helped by his decision to have another local in Mark Rutene as his assistant coach with Rutene being one of the region's top young prospects in the coaching sphere.
"It had to be a combination which appealed because not only were the people involved capable of doing a good job but it would mean that another local coach (Rutene) would be ready to take over when Cheety finished," Dougherty said. "To most of us it was a logical move but the board obviously didn't see it that way. And yet they've always talked away developing pathways for local coaches and here was the chance for them to do that."
Dougherty said WBRFU officials were correct in saying that the union's council of clubs had not made a formal recommendation that a local be appointed as the coach of the senior A side but he said that feeling had been expressed "quite strongly" from time to time at council meetings.
"I think if you were to ask most clubs about what they think in that respect the push would be very much towards encouraging locals", he said.
Dougherty accepts the WBRFU board may have what they consider to be good reasons for overlooking Cheetham but, if so, the time had arrived for them to come clean so that "outsiders" could fairly judge whether the decision made was the right one.
"Right now there are a lot of people who are wondering how on earth they (the board) could act that way and no one benefits when that sort of talk is going on," he said.