| Chronicle Match Reports |
| NPC Week 2 2004: Hawkes Bay Demolish Butcher Boys It was a stiff reality check for Wanganui rugby, if not entirely unexpected by some. It was clear through the club season that Wanganui was desperately short of quality tight five players, and defending NPC second division rugby champions Hawke's Bay ruthlessly exposed that at Westpac Stadium on Saturday with a 54-0 victory which could have been a whole lot more had not the Bay players clearly dropped a gear in the second half. With no solid base to work from, a scrum that was being hammered and a lineout which wouldn't work, the Steelform Wanganui side struck something it hadn't met before, And didn't know quite how to come to grips with it. So what was different from the previous week in Nelson when Wanganui was desperately unlucky, A series of things: Nelson Bays was clearly caught over-confident. Without skipper Mike Thompson, who played superbly the previous week, Wanganui's scrum was ineffective. Wanganui's young players, while they may have believed otherwise, clearly took too much satisfaction out of their effort in Nelson. And most importantly, Hawke's Bay was much better than Nelson, Remember the hammering they gave Nelson in last year's final? It all added-up to a decent rugby lesson in the basics , nothing more, nothing less. There's nothing fancy about Hawke's Bay rugby coach Kieran Keane , he's a pretty basic sort of guy. And he's trying to build a rugby power good enough to gain first division and stay there. His focus has always been on making sure the basics work, and that's how he approached Saturday's match. Wanganui's inexperienced, smaller forwards were the obvious target; and they wilted under the onslaught. The Bay never ran first-phase ball. It was usually moved into midfield where No 8 Mutu Ngarimu or blindside flank Michael Johnson set it up, and then the Bay switched back to Wanganui's blind and attacked consistently down Wanganui's right flank. Their ball was always good, the execution of the moves was not always perfect, but usually they managed to outflank some sketchy midfield and wide Wanganui defence. Imported Upper Hutt fullback Cory Jane was just too swift for Wanganui out there. Too many tackles were missed, there was no communication, and the first half tries came in the 12th, 18th, 20th, 32nd and 37th minutes for a 30-0 lead. But the Bay went into hibernation a bit in the second half and it looked like a training run, with various moves being tried, and not always with success. There's not a lot Wanganui can do about the situation, other than learn from it and put it behind them. As coach Milton Haig , who had been worried about the team's mental state all week, said afterwards, there would be very few changes because the best players available were in the squad. Thompson will probably be back for Saturday's North Otago match on Oamaru, and so will Irish wing John Cleary. But it's a week early for Lee Peina's return, and when he does come back he will likely be slotted into first-five, rather than at halfback, where Josh Edwards is playing very well. Others to stick with the fight right to the end on Saturday were loose forwards Semisi Taulava, Scott Donald and Peter Rowe, and wing Tomasi Komairaua. Taulava again revealed an ability to make something out of nothing. The others battled away without ever being able to maintain their concentration for the match duration. There were too many tackles missed, poor lineout throwing and co-ordination, too many errors , many of them because these Wanganui players had never really played at this pace. "It brings it back to perspective," Haig said. "They're a good quality side, they had us out wide, they were too big, too strong, too fast, and in the first half we were not there mentally. It's a good wake-up call for us , it showed us where we need to work, our scrum, our sequences, we only got one of our six throws into the lineout in the first half." Time to get to work. The hardest day of his rugby career. That's how Wanganui rugby halfback Josh Edwards summed-up Saturday's 54-0 NPC second division rugby loss at the hands of the champion Hawke's Bay side at Cooks Gardens. Edwards was one of few players to come out of the game on the profit side after an energy-sapping performance where he tried , like the little Dutch boy , to plug the holes in the leaking Wanganui defence which was under siege from the start of the game. It's to Edwards' credit, and to loose forwards Semisi Taulava, Scott Donald and Peter Rowe, and to winger Tomasi Komaninaua that they never flagged in their effort. But overall Wanganui was outgunned physically and really shown just how tough life can be in the higher division. Like: Lack of ball, and when it did come, the state of it. "I don't think I passed that ball 20 times in the whole game. We just have the ball much, and when we did the ball presentation wasn't good , no, definitely the hardest day I've spent on a rugby field," Edwards said after the match. "My job's to get the ball out, but I found myself in there trying to clear it, doing a forward's job , then I had to try and get from the short side to the open to cover the backs." Edwards' fitness proved superb in the circumstances considering he hasn't had a great deal of match-play this season while sitting on the Pirates bench in club play. "I've put in a lot of hard work with Lance (Brown) on Wednesday nights and a bit of extra fitness work. I felt my fitness was fine out there." Edwards was not inclined to use the state of some parts of the ground for bad passing and errors made by Wanganui in the match , the side turned the ball over 17 times in the second half. Basically in the first half Wanganui hardly had the ball to give away. "This ground was definitely a lot better than what we've played on except for the relaid patch , and even the ball was OK. You can't put its state down to dropped balls, bad passes and stuff like that." But Edwards did say that the inexperienced Wanganui players were caught short by the higher-paced game played by the second division champions. "There are no excuses from the conditions , although admittedly the pace of the game was quicker than anyone had been used to. The most matches for anyone for Wanganui out there today was only 21 with Leon Mason, and this was only my 12th. "But I think we did rest on our laurels too much after last week's effort, We didn't compete for the ball as much. Hawke's Bay was much more desperate. It was a big learning curve out there. "If we want to be up near the top we have to get our A into G. Hopefully we can learn something out of this." |
| Please note that few 2004 Chronicle reports have been made available. For most IWRSA game reports please see Latest News |