THE Port Macquarie Pirates will travel to Coffs Harbour in all three grades tomorrow, hoping to secure the Mid-North Coast Zone Rugby Club Championship and First XV minor premiership.
The matches against Coffs Red, on their home ground, should give the Pirates a very good indication of where they sit coming into the finals, in August, as the hosts boast a very proud home ground record.
In fact, the Pirates are the only team to have beaten the Coffs outfit at home in the past six years.
Coffs, meanwhile, did hand the Pirates their only defeat of the 2008 season so far with a 14–10 victory in round one in very wet conditions.
“We weren’t very organised going into the first game of the year,” assistant coach Peter Gerathy admitted.
“We only had one trial game and a lot of new faces, so I wasn’t surprised at the result.
“I was more concerned about the scrums in round two when we were lucky to get away with the win,” he added, referring to the 15–6 victory to the Pirates at Stuart Park in May.
Since that encounter, the Pirates have added scrum guru Stewart Robertson to the coaching team and the team has improved significantly in the set piece.
Liam Casey, Lucas Wall and Willie Kuki will need to be at their best tomorrow against a very good scrummaging squad, that includes 2008 NSW Country prop Hugh Campbell.
If the Pirates’ scrum can deliver clean ball, the side is expected to capitalise with their speedy backs.
“We have been scoring some great tries but we haven’t clicked yet and Coffs kept our boys pretty quiet last time,” Gerathy said.
The Pirates welcome the return of centre Tim Platt to the starting line-up after coming off the bench last week, following concerns that he may have fractured a knee cap in a training mishap.
Platt was in his usual brilliant attacking mood when he took the field and scored two sensational tries, lifting his season tally to 14 – two ahead of winger Chris Matheson.
Matheson will not get a chance to add to his total tomorrow as he is unavailable due to family commitments, giving Simon Martin another well-deserved chance in the First XV.
Fullback Nathan Ives is also keen to put in another solid performance after some very special games in recent weeks.
Ives was simply devastating against the Vikings and he has been in tremendous form for the past month or so.
“He’s a very rare talent and has hardly put a foot wrong in the last four or five games, which is quite remarkable in his first year of rugby,” Gerathy said in reference to the slightly-built league convert.