Mauger gets idea of key work-ons for Moana Pasifika
The Moana Pasifika coach identifies areas his team must improve after preseason flogging by the Chiefs. David Long reports.
Moana Pasifika’s 61-7 thrashing at the hands of the Chiefs on Friday night looks ugly on paper but it has given the team’s coach, Aaron Mauger, a clear indicator of what needs working on.
The fledgling Super Rugby team plays the Highlanders next weekend, in its final hitout before the season begins and Mauger will be able to spend the week working on where Moana Pasifika are falling short.
‘‘Forty one guys got some footy, most guys got 30 minutes, which was a plan for us. It was a bit of a test to measure ourselves,’’ Mauger said.
‘‘It’s hard to know where you’re at until you’ve played an opposition and we played a quality team.
‘‘The two big learnings for us were around the breakdown and winning our own set piece ball.
‘‘So we couldn’t really build a lot of pressure.
‘‘If we tidy those two things up we can build some pressure and we saw at the end there, our young guys have got some talent.
‘‘It’s just about doing all of those little things well around the set piece and breakdown.
‘‘I thought we showed some real substance on defence early on, which is a positive for us,’’ he said.
In the attacking part of the game, Moana Pasifika rarely got going at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland, as errors stopped them building momentum.
Given that this team has been together for just over a month, it’s not surprising that combinations haven’t gelled yet.
Over time they should, but what’s going to be key against the Highlanders and into the first few rounds of Super Rugby Pacific is that the defence stays solid.
‘‘We’re going to have to build our game in the early season around our defence,’’ Mauger said.
‘‘There was plenty of heart there, we were pretty wellconnected in the intensity and the collision was good.
‘‘We could probably stay a bit higher on the inside, to get more two-man shots and pressure on the ball, that’s an area of growth for us.
‘‘But on the whole, pretty good. The points really came through set piece pressure, so that’s an area we need to look at next week.’’
Naming different teams for each of the three 30-minute periods against the Chiefs shows that not too much can be read into the scoreline and the team’s new fans should get a better indicator about how the season will go next weekend.
‘‘Cohesion is going to be pretty important to us,’’ Mauger said.
‘‘So we’ll be building some combinations next week and pretty much close to a full strength starting 15.
‘‘We’ll make sure those guys get bigger minutes as well, so the guys are going to have to go a bit longer, closer to 60 [minutes] and then full games.’’
Sceptics of Moana Pasifika will be quick to jump on them after this result and predict a woeful season.
While few would pick them to claim the title, they should be a team that grows over the campaign, as what’s missing mostly for them now is experience.
‘‘We have quite a few of our guys who haven’t even played NPC rugby and seven or eight guys who’ve had a handful of NPC games,’’ Mauger said.
‘‘The gap between NPC and Super Rugby is a gulf now. The intensity was the big lesson for them, so a great experience for those boys.’’
Meanwhile, Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan says he’s admired what Moana Pasifika have achieved so far.
‘‘I love the way they’ve gone about their business,’’ he said.
‘‘They’ve put a strong emphasis on the connections and culture and it’s going to put [them in good] stead moving forward.
‘‘There are going to be some steep curves, but they would have got a lot of learnings out of this and they’ll get better.
‘‘There are a lot of quality players in their team and a quality coaching staff and I wish them all the best.’’