Talent to be imported

Wairarapa-Bush are to take advantage of a rule which allows for up to three imports to be used by any team participating in the 2008 Heartland rugby competition.
Coach Kelvin Tantrum confirmed yesterday he would be going down that track to cover "areas of concern" which have been exposed during his side's opening two non-championship games against a Wellington XV and a Hawke's Bay XV.
The first of those matches was lost 98-0 with Wellington running in 16 tries while just two days ago Hawke's Bay beat the locals 77-0, scoring 13 tries in the process.
"It's not something we wanted to do but it's become very clear to us that we need to strengthen some areas, and that we simply don't have the talent available to us locally to do that," Tantrum said of the decision to utilise imports. "Right now we are in the process of looking at players from outside the region who could do a decent job for the union and hopefully we'll have some names in the next few days."
The decision to use imports is, of course, nothing new for Wairarapa-Bush. For instance one of the stars of last season's team, first-five John Dodd, played club rugby in Manawatu and before that Peter Russell used a number of Wellington-based players in his sides which won the NPC third division title and the Meads Cup section of the Heartland championship in successive years.
It won't be the first time either that Tantrum has gone that way because two of the late additions to his squad for the match with Hawke's Bay on Tuesday actually play for the Upper Hutt club coached by the current Wairarapa-Bush assistant coach Mike Robinson.
Wingers Nui Fomo and Chris Puketamo were brought in at the eleventh hour after the Wairarapa-Bush squad was decimated by injuries and unavailabilities and they each had 40 minutes playing time.
While he was making no excuses for his team's hefty defeat which, let's face it, was widely anticipated, Tantrum agreed that the preparation for Tuesday's game could hardly have been worse.
Only 12 members of the squad had been able to take part in their final training run on Sunday with the stage being reached where Robinson was filling in at lock and trainer Neil Foote at fullback.
"There was the odd joke that Robbo and Footy might actually have to play but, hell, we were almost getting down to that situation," Tantrum said." Honestly, we were still ringing around madly on Sunday night to make up the numbers, it was that bad."
The selection process for the third of the non-championship games against Manawatu at Palmerston North next Tuesday (start time 3.30pm) won't be any easier.
The walking wounded after the Hawke's Bay match included Gladstone trio Mike Spence, Steve Wilkinson and Jordan Watene, while injuries could also keep Dan Griffin, Lance Stevenson and James Boyle out of the action there.
Throw in the fact that Nathan Couch is off to Fiji to get married, James Bruce will be among his guests and Tiari Mahuri has been judged "surplus to requirements" and it's clear that Tantrum and Robinson have some serious thinking to do if they are to come up with a side which can be even mildly competitive against yet another Air New Zealand Cup union.
Tantrum said there was a "good chance" at least some of his imports would be part of the side to play Manawatu but, if not, they would there in total for the "friendly" against Poverty Bay in Masterton on August 9.
"We need time to work them into our systems so the sooner we get things sorted out the better," he said.
Reflecting on the actual Wairarapa-Bush performance against Hawke's Bay, Tantrum said that despite the preparation hassles the side had improved their efforts in some areas from the earlier game against Wellington.
"The lineout was definitely an improvement, the scrum was solid enough and we recycled the ball better in the rucks and mauls & it wasn't all bad news," he said, adding that it was always going to be a struggle against opposition which was well organised and had the physicality and the pace to go with it.
"We actually did manage to identify parts of their game where we could possibly expose a weakness or two but we simply didn't have the physical strength to pull it off," he said,. "We tried hard enough but we were outmuscled, simple as that."