Seven out of 10 at best.
That's the assessment of Wanganui rugby coach Milton Haig after his side rampaged through Thames Valley 65-18 (11 tries to two) in Saturday's Heartland Championship rugby opener.
And to back up that apparently less than charitable score, Haig says it's highly likely the players will put tackle suits on themselves at tomorrow night's training "and let themselves go at each other" to sharpen some sloppy work around the fringes of the ruck area.
"There were some good points ? we thought the backs did pretty well and scored some excellent tries," Haig said. In fact the wings/fullback area produced nine of the 11 tries.
"But there were some things. We weren't happy about giving away that final try. Regardless of what the score was at the time, I sent out the message and gave them the task 10 minutes from the end of keeping their line secure.
"The fact that they couldn't do that was disappointing ? and I made sure they knew about that at the end of the game. If I rated our performance out of 10, I would still probably only give ourselves seven out of 10 ? because of the quality of the opposition, and the fact we were still too soft around the contact area.
"I don't think we were as good as we could be around the ruck, where we missed too many tackles, so tomorrow night we might let them put some tackle suits on and go at each other," Haig said.
Thames Valley were not as good as expected, and coach Ross Cooper said they "were shellshocked" and outgunned. But good points for Wanganui: The team showed a quick adaption to Haig's introduced pattern which uses players on specific sides of the field, and all players for all tasks. He believed they achieved a pass mark on that 80 percent of the time, and only once did they drop back "to playing club rugby".
Backline movement of the ball, and deception via dummy runners. Thames Valley had no answer to an excellent back effort. Back coach Guy Lennox: "We had a good hour working on it at Thursday's run. I was just watching with the reserves and I felt there was a lot of deception being created ? and if we click on the day, they would be hard to hold. And they did, it worked."
Good lineout work and reasonable scrum work ? although admittedly Wanganui had a 40kg weight advantage over a small Thames Valley pack.
Steelform Wanganui now plays King Country at Te Kuiti, and King Country started well enough with a 23-all; away draw with Horowhenua-Kapiti on Saturday.
Only prop Sheldon O'Hagan has a slight shoulder problem, and that's balanced by the fact that Mike Thompson should be fit to be considered for selection this Saturday.
Wanganui thump Thames Valley 65-18 but still room for improvement
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