By CHRIS RATTUE
When a Poverty Bay back disappeared on the eve of the Ranfurly Shield challenge, coach Kiwi Searancke called the police.
Policeman Warren Banks, the Poverty Bay centre, was nowhere to be found as the team prepared to fly out of Gisborne yesterday morning.
Searancke and assistant Les Barbara made frantic
calls from their airport-bound car, to find that Banks had been called to work.
"I wasn't in a laughing mood, finding we're playing at Eden Park with 21 men," said Searancke, who will talk to Banks about "communication issues".
"I'm no cry baby, though. It is not unusual for guys to find at short notice they must work. Rugby is their recreation. And the police can be pretty secretive."
So Banks goes down in the book as another quirky Ranfurly Shield story to emerge when the big guns play the pop guns.
The Banks withdrawal has not only created a Poverty Bay gap, but also the first cardboard cut-out reserve to figure in a shield challenge. Wing Viliame Waqaesduadua was in the North Harbour squad but doesn't play on Sundays so has been lent to Poverty Bay.
He will sit on the bench, but is unlikely to play.
Searancke said: "The paperwork hasn't been done. It's a hairy question - if we won the shield we might lose it on a technicality.
"It's impossible getting a replacement at short notice but it could be embarrassing sitting there with only 21 players. I really just need a bum on a seat."
Among the lucky ones able to play is flanker Toka Liku, the head of a forestry gang which doesn't get paid if he is absent. Poverty Bay also include former Wellington cricketer Mark Jefferson.
Searancke has felt shield glory and pain - he coached Waikato when a long reign ended against Canterbury in 2000, but he has no illusions today.
"We'll be a long way from running Auckland close," said Searancke.
"But if you can match excitement and desire with ability, you can cause problems."
