|
Written by the Fan in the Stand
|
|
Thursday, 19 October 2006 |
We have battled through the brave new world of the Air New Zealand Cup and the Bay’s season went as expected . We finished 7th of 14 teams and that was a pass mark for our boys. We won 6 games and lost 4 and managed to dispose of all the new teams that we met, a satisfactory performance after pre-season losses to Counties and Hawke’s Bay.
In Fan in the Stand tradition, let’s review the season with another list of 5 reasons to be cheerful.
- Cory Aporo. We started the season without an established midfield, we ended it with a number 12.
- Jamie Nutbrown. Kevin who? Our only recent All Black is well forgotten now, maybe Nutbrown can be the next Bay All Black.
- Castle, Davison & Sorenson. The rocks around which the future Bay pack must be built. Let’s hope Super 14 selections keep them in the Bay.
- Williams and Delany. Both have shown flashes of brilliance this season causing envy for provinces which lack even a good first five.
- The young guns. Latimer, McDonald, King, Wallis. The future for the Bay is bringing through and retaining our young talent. It has been great to see 2 of these starting regularly and with Afoa off to North Harbour, Wallis moves up the pecking order.
The major disappointment for the season was missing out on the Top 6 after losing our first 3 games. Our subsequent run of 6 consecutive wins felt like a demotion into the Second Division, and the crowds reflected that. For attendances to improve, we need to play a couple of the big teams at home. Who knows if this will happen in 2007? Super 14 selections are only a couple of weeks away and it is good to see the Chiefs already doing their best to alienate their franchise area. By awarding all of their 6 home games to Hamilton, it is unlikely that the Bay’s rugby supporters will stream over the Kaimais to watch a Waikato XV playing in front of cowbells and a chain saw. Now we wait for the Chiefs squad announcement, the Fan expects no more than 4 players from the Bay but hopes to be pleasantly surprised. By all accounts, the Easter weekend game at Blue Chip this year was a tremendous success. It was certainly a pleasant day, sunshine and jazz during the day, rugby at night and Tahana on fire. So maybe the next time the Chiefs have a home match during the Easter weekend, they will come to the Bay again. This Fan can scarcely contain his enthusiasm. So to round off the season on an upbeat note – 5 great tries from the Bay in 2006.
- Tahana’s water slide try against Taranaki. OK it shouldn’t have been given but that was the only favour we had from the TMO all season.
- Williams’ chip and chase to finish off Counties.
- Nutbrown’s chargedown try in the quarter final.
- Aporo’s try in the round robin game against Auckland. It was a “wow, we have a backline” moment.
- Charlie Baxter carving up Manawatu in Rotorua.
|
News and Opinion 
