Where's the gee whiz?

OPINION: The signing of Leana de Bruin by Steel last week is a significant move for the franchise, writes Nathan Burdon in this week's Straight Up.

Pessimism about the team's 2010 title aspirations was starting to build after what seemed like one-way traffic down at Steel headquarters at Stadium Southland with Megan Hutton and Adine Wilson quitting the game, Katrina Grant defecting to Pulse and Donna Wilkins taking a stand after feeling slighted by the organisation.

No offence to Megan Dehn, but the return of the veteran Australian paled in comparison with the losses.

Now that de Bruin has been added to the defensive end, Steel fans can have reason for optimism the team might be able to repeat the feats of the past season and be a playoff contender.

This team still needs a gee whiz signing, someone who will make people splutter over their coffee cups in the morning to be a real threat, however.

With Dehn taking the one available import spot, that's unlikely to happen.

Steel are shaping up as a team with a solid, but not spectacular, look about them.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Coached well, teams like that can become champions.

It's hard, though, to ignore the fact this lineup would be a heck of a lot stronger if it contained one more game breaker say a certain dissaffected double international from out Balfour way, for instance.

Despite the concerns of my wife, I'm planning to do the Bannockburn Gutbuster in November.

It's not my wife's fault, she's been here before. I have a habit of getting fired up about events, only for the energy to fizzle out a couple of weeks later when some other shiny thing grabs my attention.

The Gutbuster didn't get its name by accident. It's an 80km battle with two big climbs and a gnarly gorge in the middle, which runs through the Nevis from Garston to Bannockburn.

I chickened out last year and have felt a little bit chafed about it ever since.

Training started last week and I did enough to realise that there's a lot of work to be done between now and November 28.

You'll be able to follow my progress on our Southland Times sports blog The Roar in the sports section of www.southlandtimes.co.nz

Any helpful tips or advice will be much appreciated.

By the way, I'm also open to the idea of sponsors and a bit of cheap advertising. I'll enthusiastically review any equipment or product potential supporters want to send my way.

Stags backs coach Simon Culhane goes from an almost empty draw to an embarrassment of riches this week with James Wilson and Robbie Robinson both available for the No10 jersey against Bay of Plenty on Friday night.

Wilson and Robinson will go into the mix with Seminar Manu, while John Dodd scored 25 points for the Southland development team at the weekend.

Culhane knows more about playing that position than this writer, but if I was in his shoes I'd change tack and start Robinson at 10 and give him the goalkicking duties, and push Wilson back to fullback.

Robinson is a big game player, and they aren't going to get much bigger than Friday night.

 

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