Rugby: Te Puna look to revive season

Whakarewarewa's Whaimotu Craft-Chemis (with ball) will find out on Monday if he made the Steamers. Before then, however, his club side need to turn over Te Puna. Photo / File

Te Puna are one position away from the wooden spoon but Whakarewarewa coach Ngarimu Simpkins reckons this Saturday's visit to Maramatanga Park is the club's most important fixture of the season.

Te Puna had a close clash with table-topping Te Puke Sports last week, and it's this fightback that makes Simpkins wary of letting the team's guard slip.

"This is the most important game of the season to us," he said.

"We lose this and we start falling into a dog fight with other teams, but if we win we'll look like we deserve a spot in the top four. It's about whether or not we deserve to be there and that will show in the next four weeks.

"It definitely won't be easy. Te Puna only just lost to Te Puke last week. We're expecting a tough game.

"We may be in the top end of the table but these guys want to knock us off our feet. We're taking it as a do-or-die game. It's going to come down to who wants the points - and we need them."

Whaka are currently in fourth spot, just two points behind Tauranga Sports. Training for this weekend's tie has been made a little bit trickier with the Steamers trials. Whaka have five players in the mix and hopes are high there will be at least one Rotorua rep when the squad is named on Monday.

Training this week has focused on mental aptitude rather than physical work as Simpkins tries to mitigate injury risk.

"We've had to lessen our workload ... it's been more about organisation and making sure they are in the right mindset. It's about mental focus rather than physical."

Rotoiti are also on the road this weekend with a match at Rangataua, who will be trying to redeem themselves after a narrow loss to Rangiuru. Rotoiti lost at home to Opotiki by a similar margin.