Captain Christie ready for Auckland NPC semifinal
Tasman's Shane Christie, pictured here in last week's win over Taranaki, is looking forward to Friday's semifinal.
This time last season, a patched-up Shane Christie was fighting through the pain barrier in a bid to lead his team to national provincial championship rugby glory.
A severe foot injury meant that the Tasman Makos' inspirational flanker and captain needed pain-killing injections to get through last season's premiership semifinal and final. And while history shows that Tasman's title bid was ultimately unsuccessful, a now injury-free Christie is just thankful that Tasman have another opportunity to snatch provincial rugby's top prize.
He's certainly up for it physically and feeling much better prepared about taking on Auckland in Friday's semifinal at Eden Park.
"I'm pretty much injury-free at the moment, so hopefully it lasts," Christie said.
"I'm way better. The whole team's in a pretty good position actually. When you compare the seasons, we're physically in better health at the moment. Everyone's feeling pretty fresh."
And after three previous losses, last week's confidence-boosting win over Taranaki in New Plymouth was just the tonic the team needed heading into their most important game of the season.
"The last three games before Taranaki, even though we'd been losing, we were still rising in little parts of our game and improving every week.
"I think just because we lost those three games didn't mean we weren't improving, but the second half last week [against Taranaki] was probably a result of the pressure we'd put on in the first half.
"It was an awesome game...we played really well and we've prepared really well for this semifinal so we're looking forward to it. It's given us a bit of confidence. It wasn't easy losing those three games. We're in a pretty good place heading into the semi."
One of those three losses included a 28-19 defeat to Auckland at Blenheim's Lansdowne Park - Tasman's third game in 10 days. While Tasman will be better rested this time, it's also given them some valuable insight into what to expect on Friday.
"I guess that some of the tactics they had coming into the game we weren't prepared for, but I think we're prepared for that now - and some other things we've been looking at. We've done heaps of analysis on them and we've had a good week of training so we're as ready as we'll ever be.
"If we nail the things that we've worked on and stick to our game plan, we should be right."
Christie said that Tasman had to match Auckland's physicality and was also wary of their dangerous backline.
"They've obviously got some awesome backs, a lot of experience and talent, so we've just got to have really tight defence and try and get the little things done right and put a bit of pressure on them."
Christie also noted the outstanding recent form of former Tasman winger Bryce Heem who scored a hat-trick in Auckland's 31-16 win over Counties-Manukau in Pukekohe last Saturday which secured Auckland the home semi.
"Yeah, three tries, last week, he's in awesome form. We don't want him getting too many touches of the ball but I don't think he'll want to score against us anyway, his heart's still here," he joked.
