Victory vital for Meads Cup playoff hopes

Wairarapa-Bush won't be ringing the changes for their Heartland championship rugby match with Mid-Canterbury at Memorial Park, Masterton this coming Saturday.
Coach Graham Cheetham admits to be "very disappointed" at the poor showing of his side in their upset 18-12 defeat at the hands of Horowhenua-Kapiti at Levin on Saturday but says their effort to win their previous three Heartland games would take precedence in the selection process for their next assignment.
"We've still got the best record in our pool so it wouldn't make sense to come down too harshly on the players after the one loss," he said.
"They deserve better than that."
Cheetham was making no excuses for his team's failure to take away more than a bonus point from the match against a Horowhenua-Kapiti side which was languishing at the bottom of pool A after three successive defeats.
"We had a good warm up and everybody seemed tuned in and ready to go but we didn't fire a shot," he said.
"I think it's fair to say that everyone was very disappointed about how things went, not only management but players as well."
Cheetham was flummoxed as to why Wairarapa-Bush dropped so much ball during the course of the 80 minutes, particularly in the close quarter forward exchanges.
"It's hard to pin point why but we just couldn't seem to catch the ball, maybe we were thinking too far ahead and rushing things," he said.
"We didn't pay enough attention to the basics, we needed to be more patient."
A big worry for Wairarapa-Bush leading into the Mid-Canterbury match is that fullback-cum-centre Simanu Simanu is a doubtful starter due to the groin strain which saw him leave the field at halftime in Levin.
Simanu was the sole Wairarapa-Bush back in that game to look capable of breaching the opposition defence on a regular basis and his absence was sorely felt, especially towards the end of the game when Wairarapa-Bush launched two or three promising attacks but suffered from an obvious lack of penetration in their outside backs.
Had Simanu been on hand things may well have been different in that respect, and so might the final scoreline.
If Simanu can't play the odds are that Heemi Tupaea will start at fullback with Jon Guillard partnering Tapaga Isaac in midfield although having the hard-running Phil Aporo at centre is another option as well.
Aporo didn't have many chances to show his attacking skills when he came off the reserve bench to play on the wing in Levin but when he did he generally made handy metreage before being halted.
Cheetham and co-selector Lofty Stevenson will also have taken notice of the excellent form shown in midfield by the experienced Dave Drummond for the Wairarapa-Bush B's.
However, their intention to give their current squad members the chance to make amends for their Levin disappointment probably means any promotion for him is on the back burner for another week at least.
It is likely though that the calf muscle injury which saw No.8 Steve Olds limp from the field at Levin will see one of the B team loosies promoted to the A squad for the Mid-Canterbury game.
Just who that will be is open to debate as Cheetham and Stevenson could opt for a player of Olds' ilk like Joe Nuku or move skipper Mike Spence from the blindside flank to No.8 and bring in Jared Hawkins on the flank.
Hawkins scored two tries during a lively game for the B's in their 70-point thumping of their Horowhenua-Kapiti counterparts and might be the favourite on that basis.
Victory for Wairarapa-Bush over Mid-Canterbury is vital to their Meads Cup playoff hopes as it would guarantee two of their three pool games there would be at home but then again Mid-Canterbury has plenty to play for too.
They probably need to win themselves to even make the Meads Cup playoffs and have the extra incentive of knowing that if they do they could actually finish second in the pool, and therefore consign Wairarapa-Bush to just the one home playoff match.
Also worth noting is that teams take the competition points earned from their pool matches into the Meads Cup playoffs so the more they have the better their chances of qualifying for the semi-finals in about a month's time.