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Highlanders bench Aaron Smith for Blues clash
By Online Editors
The impact of mid-season All Blacks camps is being felt by the Highlanders, who had seven players attend a camp in Christchurch on Monday. Star halfback Aaron Smith has been benched in favour of Kayne Hammington, suggesting that the disruptions have played a part in selections.
"We just feel [Kayne] is the right man for the job this week," head coach Aaron Mauger said. "It's also a short week for us, and we had seven guys away at an All Black camp on Monday, so they have only had one training with the team this week."
"Kayne has done a great job leading the team for the first few days this week, and we've got the captain's run tomorrow before we head up to Auckland. I'm sure he'll be ready to fire come Friday night.
It will be the first time this season Aaron Smith doesn't start for the Highlanders, while other returning All Blacks Ben Smith, Waisake Naholo, Luke Whitelock and Dillon Hunt will retain their starting positions.
Mauger is confident that starting Hammington will still give the Highlanders what they need from the halfback position.
"He's not a big man but he's really physical. He competes for everything, which is what we really love about him.
"We just love the space that he lives in each game, he's in every moment and he's very competitive. That's what we want from our nines.
"On the whole, we're pretty happy with where the squad is at and we've got plenty of competition for places, which is a good place to be.
The Highlanders will be looking to continue the Blues misery against fellow New Zealand sides, who have won just one of the last 25 clashes. The sides met in their season openers, where the Highlanders outlasted the Blues in a classic derby in Dunedin.
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Latest Comments
I think we need to get innovative with the new laws.
Now red cards are only 20 minutes, Razor should send Finau on a head hunting mission to hospitalise their 10 with a shoulder to the chops.
Give the conspiracy theorists a win.
Go to commentsEngland played well enough to win but couldnt score when they needed to and couldnt defend a couple of X-Factor moments from Telea which was ultimately the difference. They needed to hold the ball more and make the AB's make more tackles. Territorially they were good for the first 60. Defending their lead and playing pragmatic rugby in the last 20 was silly. The AB's always had the potential to come back. England still have a long way to go, definite progress would have been shown had they won but it seems they are still stuck where they were shortly after the six nations and their tour to NZ
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