Counties' reputation goes on the line

By LINDSAY KNIGHT

In the 47-year history of Counties Manukau as a rugby union no season will be more critical than this year. Nothing less than the union's future identity is at stake.

At the end of last season's first division, Counties, having finished bottom of the 11 teams, were relegated. It was a sad demotion for a union which produced so much superb talent, such as Jonah Lomu, but battled with the switch to professionalism.

Counties were relegated to second division once before, for the 1992-93 seasons. But they quickly regained status and by 1996-97, under the coaching of Mac McCallion, were good enough to make the first division final in consecutive seasons.

The decline, though, in the past few seasons has been swift and the latest setback does not have some of the advantages of the early 90s. In those seasons the gap between first and second divisions was not as pronounced as it has become in the past three or four years.

To restore fortunes Counties have turned to one of their greatest products, Bruce Robertson - the champion centre of the 1970s - as coach after he spent many years with the Auckland union.

Robertson is aware that the task of returning Counties to the top division is a formidable one. Pointing to Hawkes Bay and Manawatu, also now in second division after being premier unions in the 60s and 70s, Robertson said: "The history, and especially with those two unions, shows that the longer you spend out of first division the harder it is to get back."

Robertson admits to having a limited knowledge of the second division.

For that reason he is delighted to have as his assistant coach Mike Turner, who last year had charge of second division battlers Thames Valley.

"Mike's got a pretty good handle on what it is all about, but from what I can see it is a tough, even competition and there are number of pretty seasoned teams like Hawkes Bay, Manawatu, East Coast, Marlborough and Nelson Bays.

"They seem to have been the best sides of recent years but I don't think we can take any of the others like Thames Valley or Mid Canterbury lightly either."

Robertson is aware that most of the sides have high-profile coaches. The legendary Alex Wyllie is in charge of Marlborough and former Springbok prop Balie Swart is at Nelson Bays.

The drop to second division has had an inevitable impact on the Counties playing strength. Leading backs Danny Lee and Blair Feeney have gone to Otago and Loki Crichton to Waikato. A trio of young forwards, Hare Makiri, Koulo Tukino and George Stowers, have gone to Japan.

But promising centre Casey Laulala has been retained, as have a core of solid forwards headed by Kristian Ormsby, Wayne McEntee, Ramon Lindsay, Dion Kingi and Grant Henson.

Counties should get an early line on their prospects with the opening match at Pukekohe on August 24 against Manawatu.

They meet another leading contender, Nelson Bays, at Pukekohe on August 31 and have home matches against the big surprise of the second division last year, East Coast (September 21), and against Mid Canterbury (October 5).

The away games are against defending second division champions Hawkes Bay (September 14), Thames Valley (September 7) and Marlborough (September 28).