Johnsonville 2017 Premier Rugby Team after their final game of the season. Image: Blair Mockett
Johnsonville premier rugby coach Logan Tauiliili wants to stay in the job to win in 2018 after finishing second this year.
“Why change something that isn’t broken” says Tauiliili.
He says the experience of finishing second-last in 2016 helped him and the team this season.
“I was proud of those guys last year on how they fought right through to the very end,” says Logan, who took over after the club finished second in the 2015 Hardham Cup.
“They turned up to every training in the cold and they never gave up on the field.”
Logan had the difficult task of rebuilding a team that made the Hardham Cup final in 2015.
“We lost about 16 to 17 premier players,” said Logan.
Many players last year were thrust into the premier team from the colts team.
Johnsonville premiers won 10 games this season, an improvement from last year where they won only a single game.
“The Players have grown from last year.
“We worked a lot with their conditioning prior to pre-season.”
“We had to change the mentality of the players and focus on one thing and one thing only.”
However, missed their first goal of getting into the top tier Jubilee Cup in the second round.
“We had to change our goals slightly from Swindale shield [first round] to Hardham Cup.
“We really wanted to put in a good effort for the second round [Hardham cup].”
However, Johnsonville came just short of winning the second division Hardham Cup this year finishing second just behind winners Upper Hutt Rams.
“I think we have achieved a lot this year.
“We should have won the Hardham cup, and unfortunately we fell off one game and didn’t get some bonus points when we should have,” says Logan.
“We learned from it and I think this team is a team that is going to grow and grow”.
“I look forward to seeing them in the Jubilee Cup next year if we do things right”
Four players from Johnsonville were participants in the Wellington Lions wider training group and the Wellington Lions pre-season this year.
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