Captaincy eases the hurt
‘‘You look back on the awesome players that have gone before me in the jersey or have been able to captain the team like Shane Christie and Andrew Goodman, and it’s good to see that they have stuck around and taken their place in the coaching team.
‘‘I’ve definitely learnt a lot from my first year as captain and worked a lot around my mental skills side of things and definitely around my leadership skills.’’
Despite their perfect record, Havili, one of eight former Nelson College students in the team, said the Tasman players weren’t getting ahead of themselves as they chase an elusive Mitre 10 Cup title.
‘‘It’s been a really good start but the reality is we haven’t done anything yet. We’ve won four games and we’re obviously pretty happy with what we’ve done over the past couple of games but we’re just trying to focus on what we can control and each week put in a good performance in the hope of getting the win,’’ he said.
‘‘But I’m really happy with how the boys are tracking at the moment. It’s good to have a lot of experience this year and we’ve got a lot of depth in the squad which is awesome as well. We haven’t really experienced any serious injuries yet, touch wood, and I think the squad is in really good stead for the next couple of games.’’
Tasman will look to extend their winning streak to five games when they tackle Counties Manukau in Pukekohe tonight. They will be without star flanker Liam Squire as the coaches rotate their playing personnel.