Rugby: Season at stake now for wooden-spooners

Southland and Counties Manukau will be striving to win their first game of the season when they square off in a bottom-of-the-table match in Invercargill tomorrow.

Both have a solitary bonus point to show for similar near-misses during their first four games and are desperate to nab that elusive win.

Southland coach Leicester Rutledge appeared thrilled with the effort by his team against Waikato a week ago.

However, after reviewing the game on video he was not too pleased after all.

"We made a lot of mistakes, missed far too many tackles and turned over too much ball," he said yesterday.

"They are basics of playing winning rugby and until we get them right we will always struggle.

"The areas of concern have been worked on at training this week but we have to get them right during a game."

With Clarke Dermody replacing returning Otago prop Joe McDonnell, Rutledge has brought in Iona Sipa and Brad South to join the reserves' bench in place of Brendon Pascoe and Dermody.

Counties Manukau coach Andrew Talaimanu said his players were unlucky to lose to Auckland and Otago, but they remained positive despite a demanding season, which in consecutive weeks has taken them to Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill.

"It was close against Auckland but we should have beaten Otago.

"We definitely deserved to," Talaimanu said.

"We're expecting a tough battle against Southland.

"They're always tough at home but we'll give as good as we get, I can assure you.

"Unlike us, they are really the Southland invitational XV made up of players from all over the place, but all our boys come from Counties and that's important if you want to develop your depth."

Counties have rearranged their backline, welcoming back George Leaupepe from suspension and have opted to start first five-eighths Blair Feeney and second five-eighths Peter Epati.

Southland have lost 25-41 to Northland, 24-27 to Taranaki, 16-28 against Auckland and 36-44 to Waikato.

Counties Manukau have gone down 15-58 to North Harbour, 17-24 to Auckland, 16-30 to Canterbury and 13-22 to Otago.

- NZPA