Traditional values secret to success

The old adage that two heads are better than one will be put to the test when East Coast looks to create history by beating Marist in the grand final of the Wairarapa-Bush senior first division rugby championship at Memorial Park, Masterton this coming Saturday.
John Pereira and Ritchie Robertson have shared the coaching responsibilities in a season which has seen East Coast make such dramatic improvement on the results achieved in recent seasons they now have the chance to win the union's major club title for the very first time.
Twice before, in 1996 when Robertson was coach and again in 1999 when Vern Marfell was in charge, East Coast has been in first division finals but each time they have tasted defeat, firstly to Masterton Red Star and then to Marist.
Both Wairarapa-Bush representatives in their playing days, Pereira and Robertson say the secret to East Coast's success in 2008 has revolved around returning to traditional values which required the players to do the hard yards on the training field.
They stressed the need for team members to attend the twice weekly practise sessions on a regular basis and to "work their butts off" so they were ready for a peak effort, mentally and physically, when game day arrived.
"There's nothing special about it, it was just a matter of getting them used to the idea that the harder they worked the better the results were likely to be," Robertson said.
"Obviously it didn't happen overnight but once the players brought into it they could see the benefits, and things started to take off from there."
Pereira, who was returning to the coaching fold after a break of more than a decade, said he had told the East Coast squad after just a handful of games they had the capabilities to be top four material this season.
"Honestly, you could see early on the sort of potential they had and personally I was quite confident they could be right up there with the big guns if they were prepared to do the work," he said. "We had a good balance between forwards and backs and if we got the game plans right there was no reason why we shouldn't do well."
The fact that only five of their squad members actually resided around the East Coast area did, however, pose a problem for the coaches in that it was seen as necessary to have two training bases, one in Masterton and one at the club's Whareama headquarters.
Finding a suitable venue in Masterton did not prove easy and, ironically enough, it was Marist who came to the rescue, allowing Pereira and Robertson to hold their trainings on their Memorial Park grounds on Monday evenings.
And they did that until conditions became too heavy because of the increased traffic and they were given permission by Masterton Red Star to transfer their Monday sessions to their Colombo Road grounds.
The Whareama trainings have been on Thursday nights with typical East Coast hospitality being offered by one of the club's stalwarts Murray Brown, who has provided a roast meal as an after-training incentive.
"Brownie is a legend in the club, he's the sort of guy does so much behind the scenes to keep things ticking over," Robertson said. "The players would love to do the business for him on Saturday, that's for sure."
That East Coast will go into the grand final as underdogs albeit slight ones is guaranteed by statistics which show the two previous meetings between the sides this season have produced the same results, wins to Marist. But rather than have their enthusiasm dampened by those results, Pereira and Robertson are quick to point to the fact that on both occasions their team was actually well placed to take the spoils.
In the Kapene Cup clash, which was lost 21-15, they were up 15-6 before they had a player sin binned and Marist ran in two late tries and in the preliminary round match of the championship proper, which they lost 29-12, they missed a penalty kick from in front which would have given them the lead at a time when the momentum was clearly swinging their way.
Optimistic as they are of a win on Saturday, Pereira and Robertson are, however, mindful of the threat posed them by a Marist side with an at times under-rated pack and probably the best attacking backline in the region.
"You don't need to be an expert to realise you have to get the better off them up front to nullify the threat posed by their backs," Pereira said.
"We'll be like everyone else and try to work out how best we can do that."
Whether East Coast will have their inspirational skipper, hooker Deon Mitchell, on deck for the grand final is something which won't be known until later in the week.
Mitchell has been in stunning form despite battling a raft of injury problems but he was again among the walking wounded after the semi-final win over Martinborough and yesterday his chances of making the starting line-up were seen as "probably worse" than 50-50.
Pereira admits not having Mitchell on deck would be a big blow to East Coast.
"He's like having a couple of extra players because of his own playings skills, his communication and his leadership," he said.
Happily for East Coast though no such worries exist over the fitness of fullback Nick Olson, who further enhanced his reputation as a try scorer by adding two more to his tally against Martinborough.
Stop Olson and you stop East Coast has been the catch-cry of many of the sides opposing East Coast this season and you can wager Marist will be devising tactics to lessen the impact he makes with his speed and elusiveness.
For Pereira and Robertson , however, that's no problem because they have the faith in other East Coast backs having the ability to shine if Olson's attacking opportunities are limited.
"Nick is freakish the way he can make something out of nothing but he's not a one-man band, not by a long shot," Pereira said.
"If they worry too much about him it's us who will benefit, that's the way we see it."