Tui Cup semis a tight call

Those who should know best predict that Saturday's semifinals in the Wairarapa-Bush Tui Cup premier division competition will go right to the wire.
Neither East Coast coach Mark Donaldson nor his Gladstone counterpart, Steve Thompson, were yesterday prepared to pick a winner of the match to be played at Whareama.
Carterton coach Steve Hurley and Martinborough coach Trevor Hawkins were also non-commital over the likely outcome of their teams' fixture at Carterton.
It's not that the four want to keep their cards close to their chests, rather a feeling there is so little between the opponents in either game that the proverbial bounce of the ball could be all that stands between them.
Results this season would certainly suggest that to be the case.
East Coast and Gladstone have met twice and, while East Coast have won on both occasions, the difference between the sides has been slight; on the scoreboard and on the field of play.
Carterton and Martinborough have played just the once with Carterton winning by a solitary point.
Donaldson, the former All Black halfback, has understandably been pleased with the form shown by his East Coast side in 2011, with the trophies for first and second round winners already in safe keeping, but he has a huge respect for Gladstone, as much for the unpredictability of their backs as anything else.
"You can never be too sure what their Fijian boys are going to do, you have to be wary of them," he said.
"And you can't under-rate their forwards either, they're pretty well equipped in most areas there too."
Thompson sees his Gladstone team as having similar strengths to East Coast, so much so that the end result was likely to come down to which of the two makes the least mistakes.
"Honestly, it's hard to see any department where one side is going to have any sort of advantage over the other, who blinks first could decide it."
For Hawkins, it is the battle for supremacy up front which might dictate the fate of his Martinborough side against Carterton. He is mindful of the fact that Carterton have some experienced campaigners in their engine room and expects the maroons to revolve a lot of their play around them.
"Tactically, we'll probably play pretty much the same sort of game."
Hurley, for his part, rates Martinborough as having one of the most rugged packs in the premier division series and says the Carterton forwards will need to be right on their mettle if they are to measure up well in the all-important battle for possession.
"We know it will be physical,
there's going to some bruised bodies about after this one."
Meanwhile, there has been good news for Wairarapa-Bush on the representative front with impressive Bush Sports hooker Jake Tipene having a change of heart and making himself available as a "loan player" for the Heartland championship squad.
The loss of Joe Harwood and Richard Puddy from last year's Heartland team had left a gaping hole in the hooking ranks but with Tipene joining Eketahuna's in-form rake Cam Lawrence in the current line-up that problem has now been solved.