Three warm-ups before a crack at the Shield

Wairarapa-Bush rugby coach Kelvin Tantrum is hopeful of his players having at least three warm-up games before they challenge Wellington for the country's most-prized trophy, the Ranfurly Shield, at Masterton's Memorial Park on Thursday, July 2.
As things stand the Shield game would be Wairarapa-Bush's first hit-out for the 2009 season but Tantrum said approaches were being made to both New Zealand Police and New Zealand Army with the idea of playing them before that.
And plans also are for the union's leading players to be involved in a trial match "of sorts" on the Monday of Queen's Birthday weekend.
"We certainly don't want go into the Shield match cold, and we won't be", Tantrum said. "It's important to get combinations working before then, and playing serious games is the best way of doing that.".
A 22-strong squad comprising the bulk of last season's Heartland championship team plus a few newcomers, has already started fitness training for this year's representative programme and Tantrum has been delighted with both their commitment and enthusiasm.
Their current fitness levels were measured over a 3km run on Monday night and the results showed them to be well ahead as a group of what they were when Tantrum first became involved with Wairarapa-Bush in April of 2008.
"We have been stressing the need for players to get themselves up to peak fitness for the start of the season and from what we have seen the message seems to have got through,"Tantrum said. "Everyone involved is working hard, you couldn't have any complaints in that respect."
Tantrum was at pains, however, to emphasise that players not yet in the squad were not out of the reckoning for the Shield match, or the Heartland championship games to follow.
"We expect to be extending squad numbers once the club season gets underway, form will always be the priority in the selection process," Tantrum said. "That's the bottom line really, anybody who isn't performing up to scratch will be on the outer.Relying on reputation will get them nowhere."
While the prospect of having the Ranfurly Shield at stake in a match played on home territory excites Tantrum he knows full well that Wairarapa-Bush will start as the rank underdogs, especially considering that a Wellington XV comprising of second and third string players came very close to racking up a century of points against Wairarapa-Bush last season.
So it is hardly surprising that when he is asked his team's most important objective in 2009 Tantrum puts sharply improving their effort of last season in the Heartland championship when they failed to make the semi-finals at the top of the list.
"Last season was disappointing., everybody associated with the team accepts that," he said.."We don't want to go down that same road again, absolutely no way.".