Wairarapa Bush show fighting spirit

They might have come away with nothing to show for their efforts but Wairarapa-Bush competed strongly during their 29-14 loss to Wanganui in the Heartland championship rugby match at Cooks Garden, Wanganui on Saturday.

In what was their last appearance for the 2011 season, Wairarapa-Bush were expected to feel the full brunt of a Wanganui side intent on qualifying top for the Meads Cup playoffs.

As it happened, however, the home team were kept honest by a determined Wairarapa-Bush who trailed by just 10-0 at halftime.

Wanganui added a further converted try early in the second spell to lead 17-0 but from then on it was pretty much evens on the scoreboard with Wairarapa-Bush running in two converted tries of their own, no mean feat against a solid Wanganui defence.

Wairarapa-Bush coach Mark Rutene was delighted with the aggressiveness of his team's play. He said his side had gone into the game intent on matching Wanganui for physicality and had pretty much done so.

"We did take a little while to cope with their intensity at the breakdowns but everywhere else we were very competitive," Rutene said.

"We didn't make it easy for them, they had to fight hard for what they got."

As they have all season, the Wairarapa-Bush forwards provided a stable platform at scrum time and through the efforts of Andrew McLean and Dan Griffin generally won their own lineout ball. McLean and Griffin were also prominent through their mobility in broken play, as were loosies Johan Van Vliet and Joss Tua-Davidson.

Indeed Van Vliet's high workrate on attack and defence would have earned him any player of the match award. The Eketahuna flanker has had a splendid debut season at Heartland level.

The Wairarapa-Bush backs only had limited chances to show their attacking skills but were impressive on defence, an area in which first-five Zeb Aporo impressed with his length and accuracy of his kicking and midfielders Sam Mitchell and Michael Vuicikau for the solidness of their tackling.

Cole Baldwin, Mark Davis, Darren Munro and Rusiate Vukula scored tries for Wanganui and Davis kicked three conversions and a penalty. McLean and O'Connor were the Wairarapa-Bush try scorers and Trent Vatselias kicked two conversions.

Saturday's loss meant Wairarapa-Bush finished their 2011 Heartland campaign with just the one win from their eight games but they can claim to have made significant improvement as the season progressed, especially over the last three weeks when they had an unlucky loss to Poverty Bay, a big win over Horowhenua-Kapiti and, of course, the brave effort against Wanganui.

Their eight competition points were not enough, however, to earn them a playoff spot for either the Meads Cup or the Lochore Cup which, of course, they won the previous year.

It left them in 10th place at the end of the qualifying rounds, with King Country and Horowhenua-Kapiti behind them.

Saturday's results: South Canterbury 37, Thames Valley 28; Poverty Bay 26, King Country 21; Buller 21, West Coast 15; North Otago 24, Mid-Canterbury 18.

Competition points: Wanganui 35, North Otago 35, Mid Canterbury 25, South Canterbury 22, East Coast 22, Thames Valley 19, Poverty Bay 19, West Coast 13, Wairarapa-Bush 8, King Country 5, Horowhenua-Kapiti 5.