Tatana leading from the front

Junior Tatana is calling himself the ‘‘sacrificial lamb’’ for this week’s national interprovincial golf championships at New Plymouth, but he could be one of their star performers.

The Foxton golfer has been elevated to No 1 for the Manawatuwanganui team, having been the reserve a year ago, and will be fighting it out with the other regions’ top golfers.

He has played a lot of rep golf and even though he’s been bumped to the top of the order he will be hard for anyone to knock over.

The team has lost a host of experience since last year, so Tatana, who has been to six interprovincials, will be leading the charge at the top of the order.

‘‘I made the big jump from reserve to No 1,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s what you get when you lose guys like Josh Munn, Lachie Mcdonald and Tyler Hodge.’’

From last year’s team Munn and Mcdonald have turned professional, Hayden Ring is playing in Wellington and Josh Sedgwick is unavailable due to his studies in Auckland.

Two other players who have played in the rep team in recent years are not available; Hodge also turned professional and Stu Smith died suddenly in August.

The 39-year-old Tatana has been to six interprovincial tournaments

since his first in 1993 at Nelson, which was six years before his 17-year-old team-mate Greg Shaw was even born.

Since then Tatana attended in 1994, 1995, 2012 when Manawatuwanganui lost to Bay of Plenty in the final on a second extra playoff hole, 2014 and last year, when they missed out on the semifinals by losing to Waikato on the final day.

He would have been part of the title-winning team in 2013 if not for a shoulder injury.

‘‘They brought me along to keep an eye on the young fellas.’’

That might be the case for Manawatu-wanganui, who aside from Tatana, are a relatively young side.

‘‘It’s good. We want to build the team environment, get our heads in the right place and go out there and play golf.’’

It will be the first interprovincial for Manawatu youngsters Shaw and Regan Mcconaghty, as well as reserve Tane North from Waiouru.

Mike Atkins and Regan Cording are more experienced.

But Tatana said even the younger guys had played enough junior rep golf.

‘‘Everybody gets on with everybody and they know what they have to do,’’ Tatana said. ‘‘It will just be experience for the younger fellas and for the debutants, they’ve played enough matchplay in their little golfing careers to know what’s required.’’

Manawatu-wanganui have a tough draw in division one with Waikato, Bay of Plenty, North Harbour, Hawke’s Bay, Auckland, Poverty Bay-east Coast and Aorangi.

Manawatu-wanganui may have had a complete clean out, but Tatana wasn’t ruling them out.

‘‘It only takes three out of the five guys to win the match.’’

Manawatu-wanganui got a practice round in yesterday, before they start this morning against North Harbour, then have the bye in the afternoon.