Top Canterbury club, the Christchurch Bulldogs, will travel to Dunedin to play a shadow Otago NPC side at Logan Park today. It had been 18 years since the club was last in the city and having had many Otago players travelling to Christchurch for games throughout the season.
"1998 was the last time these guys travelled down here," Otago coach Warwick Kain said.
"It’s been a long time turning around, it’s probably been three years in the making. For a few years they travelled to Timaru or Ashburton and played there to make it half the travel.
"But they’ve stuck their hand up and said they’ll come down and make a weekend of it, or a mini-weekend of it."
The game would act as a warm-up for the Otago team ahead of the NPC to be held in Auckland on December 10 and 11. Kain said the team would try various combinations as it prepared to head away with what he expected to be a reasonable side.
"I’m feeling really good about it. On paper we look pretty OK, I think we could be super competitive.
"You just don’t know who you’re going to come up against on the day and injuries and stuff like that, but I’m quietly confident."
The team had come a long way with players having come through after starting as youngsters, giving the team a more complete look across the park.
"We’ve got guys who started back in year 10 [at school] and they’re now going to be senior players, like they’re 19- and 20-year olds.
"So they’ve come a fair way and played quite a bit of footy now, whereas five years ago guys were going to NPC and learning the rules and positions.
"We look quite balanced across the ground now, whereas before we only really had a couple of good players. Now we’ve got good players in every position."
Player numbers in the region tended to fluctuate, as a lot of players would come and have go, although it was tougher to get them to stick with the sport.
However Kain has been putting plenty of effort into providing opportunities. On Thursday he took a group of 24 juniors to Christchurch for games against St Bede’s College and Shirley Boys’ High School.
Today’s game would begin between 3.30 and 4pm depending what time the Bulldogs arrived down from Christchurch.
