Wairarapa-Bush on a hiding to nothing

If, as they say, success breeds success then what chance of the Wairarapa-Bush rugby team making any sort of impact in this year's Heartland championship?
Two games down in their 2008 representative programme and they have yet to register a single point on the scoreboard.
That's bad but even worse is they have conceded 175 points, including a massive 29 tries.
Indeed their opposition from Wellington and Hawke's Bay have been so superior that they have not even bothered to attempt a penalty goal, meaning all their points have come from tries and conversions.
To say it has been a baptism of fire for new Wairarapa-Bush coach Kelvin Tantrum would be the understatement of the year, and the heat isn't about to get any less intense either.
Next Tuesday his team travels to Palmerston North to take on Manawatu.
Like Wellington and Hawke's Bay before them this Air New Zealand Cup union is very unlikely to play anything like their top XV but again Wairarapa-Bush is on a hiding to nothing.
Not through any fault of Tantrum but because the days of unions Wairarapa-Bush's size contesting well against the second or even third XVs of the unions involved in the premier league are over.
The professional era has widened the gap between the two to such a degree that David's chances of beating Goliath are so slight as to be not worth talking about.
Hawke's Bay is an excellent case in point. Their line-up which ran in 13 tries on a wet, miserable day hardly conducive to running rugby contained none of their Air NZ Cup squad yet the bulk of them had been in organised training since last November. They were big, fit and fast.
Compare that to Wairarapa-Bush. Their preparation had been limited to just a handful of training runs, the last of which had been decimated by injuries and unavailibilities to the point where two of the management team had to fill in to make up the numbers.
In fact, the phone lines were hot on Sunday evening to ensure they would have a full complement of players two days later, something achieved with the assistance of two "ring ins" from over the hill.
It all makes a 77-point hiding take on a somewhat different perspective, doesn't it?
Unfortunate as it would be because of the strong historical ties between the unions involved the clear message from this season's results is that Wairarapa-Bush needs to drastically revamp their representative programme leading into the Heartland championship games.
The time has arrived to say "thanks but no thanks" to the Wellingtons, Hawke's Bays and Manawatus, and to look for opposition from unions whose playing resources are similar in size to our own.
Sure, that would mean fronting up to sides who we were to meet at Heartland level a little further down the track but that could actually be seen as a positive as it would provide an early look at their possible strengths and weaknesses, something which could be very useful when championship points are at stake.
The whole idea of lead-up games to any major competition is to develop the confidence of coaches and players to the stage where they are as adequately prepared as humanly possible for the big event.
Defeat isn't the end of the world but when you go into games knowing even before kickoff that you are going to spend the vast majority of the 80 minutes chasing shadows, defending your own goalline and do bugger all attacking what's the value in that?
Absolutely none.