Highlanders hand Hurricanes hefty loss in pre-season action
Week two of the Super Rugby Pacific pre-season games saw the Hurricanes visit the Highlanders in Dunedin, with a game of three 30-minute blocks and over 30 players named to feature for each club.
The Highlanders embraced youth in an offseason where they lost half of their players, starting to filter in the first products from their new high-performance program while recruiting some promising youngsters from rival clubs.
The outing would be the Hurricanes' first without Ardie Savea and Dane Coles as the All Black pair enjoy seasons in Japan, Savea is to return to the club in 2025 while Coles is set for retirement from the game.
A 52-19 victory for the hosts wasn't what the Hurricanes would have expected, but the Highlanders showed the benefit of having one pre-season hit out already under their belt.
The Hurricanes were ambitious with their attack early, putting the ball through the hands with sweeping runs, but the Highlanders’ defence was patient and absorbed the attacking threats well.
There was a lack of execution with Brett Cameron missing touch and the Highlanders mishandling a lineout in the opening minutes, before the first big play of the game saw the Highlanders break the line from a lineout move. Recent Highlanders recruit Timoci Tavatavanawai went storming upfield and was chopped down past the 10-metre line.
The young Highlanders had a rhythm on attack, showing creativity with Folau Fakatava playing with attacking freedom. The hosts maintained a good pace at the breakdown en route to their first try, which was claimed by a rampaging Daniel Lienert-Brown. Sam Gilbert was handed the kicking duties and converted.
Duplessis Kirifi led the Hurricanes’ defence and very quickly established himself as a threat at every breakdown, which was needed given the trouble the Wellington team continued to have securing their own lineout.
Fakatava got on the board himself in the 20th minute, running a superb support line off fullback Connor Garden-Bachop who threaded the needle to find the halfback in space after shedding a couple of tackles.
The Highlanders were managing the game well, consistently finding their strong ball carriers in Renton and Tavatavanawai while utilising their secondary playmaker Sam Gilbert well in the midfield.
Brayden Iose got the Hurricanes on the front foot with a strong carry after play resumed, with the ball then finding James O'Reilly who crossed in the corner.
The opening 30-minute block came to an end with the Highlanders hitting a penalty.
Iose quickly made his mark in the second period as well, crashing over from close range in a strong albeit suspicious scoring effort.
A behind-the-back offload in contact from Rhys Patchell handed Billy Harmon an angle at the line, still with two players in front of him, Harmon powered through and got the ball down.
Tanielu Tele?a got his Highlanders career off to a strong start, running a strong support line and beating the last defender with ease. Tele'a would later produce a superb impersonation of a brick wall by absorbing the power of a charging Harry Godfrey right on the try line.
The Highlanders continued to find strong ball carriers in their reserve unit, with hulking prop Saula Ma'u contributing post-contact metres with most of his touches.
The structured nature of the game fell away as more substations entered the game and as the average age of the players dropped.
Garden-Bachop continued to probe and beat players for the Highlanders, while the Hurricanes midfield of Peter Umaga-Jensen and Billy Proctor was bruising and hard to escape on the defensive side of the ball.
Fabian Holland provided a giant frame for the Highlanders to hit at lineout time and impressed around the field with his strength and mobility.
On the wing, there was a small earthquake when Kini Naholo ran at Tavatavanawai, with the Highlanders recruit winning the play by opportunistically stealing the ball at the breakdown - not his only steal of the afternoon in that area.
Young first five-eighth Away Faleafaga looked composed for the Highlanders while the Hurricanes' line out continued to be a shambles.
The Highlanders' young front row was strong and their ball retention was efficient without the Hurricanes' more prolific fetchers on the field. That helped pave the way for Jonah Lowe to score off a pick and go.
Jordi Viljoen, son of former Springbok, Roelof “Joggie” Viljoen, was energetic as halfback replacement for the Hurricanes, and fellow 2023 New Zealand U20 product Peter Lakai was busy in all aspects of the game once on the field.
Matt Whaanga was the next to score on a strong charge from five metres out, extending the Highlanders lead to 45-12 after Faleafaga converted.
The Hurricanes struck back minutes later as Kini Naholo was put in space by swift passing, he then handed the ball to Kyle Preston to run it in untouched.
The Hurricanes' poor discipline kept handing the Highlanders favourable field position and Matt Whaanga again proved impossible to contain on another charge, this time from 10 metres out and running straight into covering forwards to bounce towards the try line.
Winning 52-19, the Highlanders showed they'll be a fun team to watch in the coming season and certainly have some firepower coming through the ranks.
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Some interesting stats that just proved what my first impression of NZ’s drive to speed up Rugby Union would amount to - fine margins here and there to cut a few seconds off the game and nothing else. To do more there would have to be wholesale changes to the game like doing away with scrums, lineouts and bringing back the ELV’s to have free kicks instead of penalties. Very little chance of it happening but, in the end, Ruby Union would be a 15-man version of Rugby League. There are reasons why Rugby Union is globally more popular that Rugby League and what NZ are also not considering is the unintended consequences of what they want to achieve. This will end up turning Rugby Union into a low value product that will not be acceptable to the paying public. If people really wanted a sped-up version of rugby, then why is Rugby Union globally way more popular than Rugby League? Rugby lovers all over the world are also not stupid and have seen through what NZ are trying to achieve here, selfishly to bring back their glory days of dominance over every other nation and compete with Rugby League that is dominant in Australasia. NH countries just don’t have the cattle, or the fantastic weather needed to play like NZ SR franchises do so good luck to whoever has to try and convince the NH to accept going back to the days of NZ dominance and agreeing to wreck the game in the process. I have serious doubts on the validity of the TV stats presented by GP. All they did was expand the broadcasting base by putting it on free to air, not even any indication of arresting the continued drop in viewership. Match day attendance goes hand in hand with broadcast ratings so if there was an increase in the one you should expect to see it with the other. However, the drop in match day attendance is very evident to the casual highlights package viewer. The only club who looks to be getting solid attendance is the Drua. I am calling it now that NZ’s quest to speed up the game will fail and so will the vote on the 20-minute red card.
Go to commentsIt’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
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