The decision of the Heartland unions to eliminate semifinals from the 2021 championship has been received with mixed feelings from some of the 12 unions involved, including Whanganui.
The dropping of the semis means the late starting season will finish a week earlier – November 13 – but it also places extra pressure on teams with title expectations because they cannot afford too many hiccups during the eight qualifying rounds.
Picking up bonus points (four tries in a game) will also be important now, with only the top four sides qualifying to play off for the Meads (top two) and Lochore (third and fourth qualifiers) cups.
During the first five years of the competition (2006-10) the leading top six qualifiers played a round-robin series to find the Meads Cup semifinalists and the bottom six teams did the same in the Lochore Cup.
From 2011 onwards the format changed to top four and next four playing off in cut-throat semis with the bottom four packing up for the season.
In reality the Lochore champions finished with a No. 7 overall ranking for the year through to 2010 and ranked No. 5 from 2011 onwards. This season the Lochore winners will be the third-highest-ranked side in the competition.
Eliminating four teams from the traditional semis will place extra pressure on the top unions, especially if they set targets of hosting a final.
Six teams, including Whanganui on three occasions, have won the Meads Cup away from home – Wairarapa-Bush 16-14 here in 2006, Whanganuii 34, Mid Canterbury 11 at Christchurch in 2009, Mid Canterbury 36, Buller 13 at Westport in 2013, Whanganui 28, South Canterbury at Timaru in 2015, Whanganui 30, Horowhenua-Kapiti 14 at Levin in 2017 and Thames Valley 17, South Canterbury at Timaru in 2018.
Under the revised format this year it will be vital for title contenders to chase five-point victories right from the start on Saturday.
The Butcher Boys, for example, will certainly not want a repeat of 2019 when the side dropped the first three qualifying games – 18-28 away v Wairarapa-Bush, 30-36 at home v Thames Valley and 21-22 away v Buller – but recovered to win six on the trot to reach the Meads final against North Otago as the No. 4 qualifiers. The Old Golds won 33-19.
Under the new rules Whanganui would have been playing South Canterbury away for the Lochore Cup, the greens beat West Coast 33-19 in the 2019 Lochore final.
Losing four matches in 2019 matched Whanganui's efforts of 2007 and 2014, but the most defeats were five in 2013 under different coaches. Whanganui finished third in the 2013 Lochore Cup, won the Lochore in 2014 and was second to North Otago in the 2007 Meads final.
Whanganui's Heartland record against opposition teams over the coming two months and average winning scores – v Poverty Bay 14 wins (42-17), v Mid Canterbury 11 wins, six losses (26-19), v Wairarapa-Bush 9 wins, three losses (36-21), v King Country 10 wins, two draws, two losses (37-17), v Horowhenua-Kapiti 11 wins, two losses (35-19), v South Canterbury 10 wins, two losses (25-17), v North Otago eight wins, six losses (22-23) and Thames Valley nine wins, two losses (36-17).
This year Whanganui does not play against Buller seven wins, four losses (27-15), East Coast eight wins, two losses (46-13) or West Coast eight wins, two losses (42-15) during the eight qualifying rounds.
Whanganui has won 105 Heartland fixtures, drawn twice and lost 31 times, scoring 4675 points, conceding 2472 with an average winning score of 34-18.
Tech stalwart
Whanganui rugby has lost a former representative selector-coach and club championship winning captain with the death of dedicated Tech COB personality William George (Bill) Carroll at the age of 86.
He recovered from a broken leg in 1964 to captain Tech to win the Whanganui-Rangitikei senior combined championship, one of four times the club won that particular competition, which ran between 1959 and 1977.
Carroll, a lively loose forward who played rugby at Wanganui Tech College before joining the Tech club as a player and coach, was a Whanganui rep selector-coach with Brian Murphy (Rangitikei) and Doug Kitto (Northern Wanganui) in 1967, with the main successes that season being 6-3 over Taranaki on Queen's Birthday Monday and 20-3 v visiting Southland.
As well as playing rugby, Caroll was a strong swimmer, winning numerous certificates, and also rowed and played golf.
Sport played a major role in his life, both as a competitor, administrator and later as a businessman, employing rugby-talented players amongst his workforce as a rural contractor including Fijian scrub cutters who helped boost the Tech COB playing numbers with a few going on to play for Whanganui.
The same formulas helped boost the East Coast rep team when work gangs from the Bill Carroll-Pat Blinkhorne company undertook rural contracts in that union.
While in business Carroll helped support various local sports with the rural contracting firm (now Blinkhorne and Bill's son Pat Carroll) still sponsoring the Whanganui winter rowing regattas.
In his earlier business ventures Bill Carroll's family operated a dairy-grocery opposite the Town Bridge in Anzac Parade and later Bill teamed up with Earl Stewart to open the BuyWell Discount House in Victoria Ave that sold an extensive range of goods including groceries.
The company extended to branches in Castlecliff and Aramoho (in the old Plaza Theatre).
At one stage Bill took his father, daughter and son on an overseas tour that lasted for more than two years. Although he had no previous experience of driving large vehicles, he worked occasionally in England as a truck driver and grader operator to help finance the lengthy world trip, which included many countries.
He was quite a character in sport and business and a quip in his newspaper death notice aptly sums up Bill Carroll – "If he touched your lives at any time in the past 86 years we reckon you would acknowledge he was truly a larger-than-life guy."
