Rams keep heads up despite slow start | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

Crisis, what crisis?

The Canterbury Rams may have lost their first three matches, but their veteran warrior Rewi Manahi, whose distant Te Arawa relative Lance Sergeant Haane Manahi's World War 2 heroism was commemorated at the weekend, is confident they can play their way out of it.

Starting with tomorrow night's match against the Wellington Saints at the Westpac.

Manahi, by far the most experienced Ram, originally looked set to miss the 2007 NBL after becoming South Island manager of a sports footwear company.

But he's made himself available where possible. He came off the bench in the first two games but had to miss Saturday's depressing away loss to the 2006 basement team, Otago.

A win tomorrow is crucial if the Rams themselves are not to became favourites for that spot this year.

"It's still early days ? there's another 15 games to go," says Manahi.

"All the pieces are in place for it to happen on the day or night."

In spite of the losses, the Rams were getting "a lot of production" from some of the younger and newer players, and players like joint skippers Nathan Hyde and Jeremy Kench, and Joel Hart and Mark Morrison now had another year of experience and knew what was expected of them, he said.

"Both Michaels" ? imports Mychal Green and Michael Joiner ? had showed some really good glimpses, he said.

Joiner, off the plane only a couple of days before the opening match against Nelson, was a "monster" against Auckland, and Green was very similar to Dennis Trammell, the 2006 NBL top scorer, he pointed out.

The Rams have been in foul trouble in all three matches. You could not afford to have your imports fouling out against teams like Nelson and Auckland, he said.

Refs called what they saw, but the team was giving up too many free throws. "It's a matter of adjusting to the way refs call it, and it comes down to a bit of experience as well."

There was some serious soul-searching in the Rams camp this week after the lamentable 14 point loss to Otago.

And if the Rams need any more motivation than their position on the table, memories of last year when the Saints scored a record 126 points against them should do the trick tomorrow.