Rugby: Looming clash has Pivac counting sheep

By Wynne Gray

It was midweek and Auckland rugby coach Wayne Pivac could not get to sleep.

It was midwinter so humidity was no reason, it was not cold, there were no car alarms going off in his suburb and his kids were well away in the land of nod.

It was a sign of the pressure of tonight's NPC clash of the round, between Auckland and Canterbury - the squeeze was coming as Auckland headed into the second half of the competition.

They had won all four opening games, missed just one bonus point and only lost Carlos Spencer and Craig Dowd to the World Cup. On the surface, everything looked rosy but tonight is something different.

"This is about going to a different level," Pivac agreed. "Your mind goes into overdrive. You go to bed and you lie there thinking about all sorts of scenarios."

Pivac admitted he had not gone through that sleepless routine since late 1997 when Northland needed to win the NPC final to gain promotion to division one.

"The restless nights are not a bad thing because it shows you are starting to switch on a lot more."

While the immediate focus will be on the results of tonight's top-of- the-table meeting, there will be much to inspect in the work of Pivac and his assistant Grant Fox. They have been favoured with a start against four sides who are in the bottom half of the points table - Wellington, Northland, North Harbour and Southland.

But playing Canterbury on their own dungheap is bigtime.

"I am well aware of the yardstick and so are the players," said Pivac. "We have been running through all the different possibilities for this game and how, if we knock Canterbury over, we could stop them gaining a home semifinal.

"We have talked about all the little things so when the pressure comes on we make the right decisions.

"In our opening games we concentrated a lot on ourselves but for this game we have done a lot more thinking about Canterbury and the occasion and what we will do in a variety of situations. One thing is for sure though, we will not need to wind the players up.

"A few players who might have been deflated about missing out on the World Cup would have gone well past that disappointment by now."

The worries for the coaching staff will be that, apart from brief spurts in each match, Auckland have not been out of third gear. Round their brief brilliance they have done enough to win.

While the attack was patchy, the defence has worked superbly with the concession of just two tries while Canterbury have been breached for seven touchdowns.

"We have to be happy knowing we can improve but you'll know how happy I am after the result against Canterbury," said Pivac.