Both coaches of last year's Meads Cup finalists North Otago and Wanganui today emphasised the unpredictability of the 10-week competition.
Barry Matthews, whose North Otago team last year halted Wanganui's dreams of a three-year Meads Cup winning streak, said there would be no such thing as an easy game in the competition.
"You just can't afford to take any team lightly," he told NZPA.
"Even the results from the first couple of rounds seem strange by the end of the season. You've just got to make sure you do your own preparation well.
"The thing with the Heartland is, you just don't know from one year to the next what teams are going to bring to the table."
Matthews said North Otago, who backed up their 2009 Lochore Cup win with a 39-18 win over Wanganui in last year's Meads Cup final, haven't had an ideal preparation, with only a single warm-up match to hone his players.
They will look to kick-start their title defence with a win over West Coast in Dunedin's brand new stadium on Saturday.
"Club rugby finished here five weeks ago, so we had a bit of a hitout last week with a South Canterbury XV. We're really lacking in games, in match fitness," he said.
That much was obvious last Saturday, when a fired-up South Canterbury downed the defending champions 31-19.
Matthews is confident his team have the capacity to improve despite losing Tongan halfback Kilifi Fangupo to a season-ending knee injury earlier this year.
"He was our player of the year last year, so we'll definitely miss him, but apart from that we've got most of the squad back."
A couple of key players in No 8 Tevita Fifita and English first five-eighth Ben Patston have also returned, but Matthews said a full-team effort would be crucial for North Otago's target of consecutive Meads Cups wins.
"It's always harder to defend a trophy than to win it, and that's a point of difference for us this year -- we want to create history by being the first team to win back-to-back Meads Cups."
Among those standing in their way will be last year's beaten finalists Wanganui.
New coach Jason Caskey has been hit with a high turnover, estimating he has picked up around 10 newcomers in his squad of 25.
Among those missing are prop and captain Matt Gilbert, who has retired and Heartland Championship player of the year, openside flanker Peter Rowe.
"He's pulled out just recently because he got knocked out two or three weeks ago," Caskey told NZPA. "That's happened a few times before and he's got a young family so he's made the decision to hang up his boots."
Caskey has had similar problems to Matthews in securing time for warm-up matches, with just the one last weekend to stretch his players' legs.
The 30-12 win over Horowhenua-Kapiti was encouraging, but "we're still a bit under-prepared from where we'd like to be".
Caskey is looking for a strong start against King Country in Wanganui on Saturday, and echoed Matthews in underlining the unpredictability of the Heartland competition.
"You have to start strongly, otherwise you get caught behind the eight-ball," he said. "You definitely don't take anybody for granted... You never really know who's strong because it depends on who's retired or injured, or whether they got loan players."
Given the lack of pre-championship warm-up matches, Caskey is expecting to get his best gauge of where his team is at on Saturday.
"You can look good training, but it's totally different when you get on the field. You can easily get a rude awakening that you're not quite as good as you thought you were."
