Highlanders sign former All Blacks Sevens speedster among haul of young talent

Rameka Phophi ? Poihipi please.

Match played out almost exactly as expected, right down to England losing all momentum when Spencer and Fin Smith came on. Contrary to what the Kiwis expected with a dominant English pack, our true strength is our aggression off the ball and ability to shut down the ABs offense. The only thing which I didn't foresee was our lack of cohesion with ball in hand, we should have been better. We didn't protect the ball well enough and went back to too many silly attacking kicks. Despite Furbank’s best efforts to drag us into the match ball in hand as he did against Ireland, the inside backs looked uncharacteristically jittery (Mitchell aside). Both kickers struggled and I'm sure Marcus will regain form. He's a good kicker who had a bad day. I hope we will gain confidence from coming so close and throw a few more punches with ball in hand, we need to look after the ball, build phases and build pressure. I really hope we can find the mettle and energy to back up that second half defensive performance at Eden Park. That's a big if, but I believe if we can defend that well again, the attack will be improved and we will win. It's going to take a great performance though. Only selection concerns for me are on the bench, especially the halfbacks. I like Fin Smith but he's not shown anything in an England shirt yet, he should stay on the bench unless Marcus is injured, we could also consider using Slade as the backup 10, that's a big risk but Fin hasn't looked up to the task yet. That's not to say he won't in years to come but he's been underwhelming, even his late touch finder was conservative when we needed to be taking risks. Another big risk is bringing Randall back. I think it's necessary though, his kicking is bad but we can't afford to lose that momentum again. After Spencer came on as he did in the Six Nations we lost all tempo and didn't fire a shot in anger for the rest of the match. We need a backup 9 who can play like Mitchell, the only option is Randall. He needs to improve prove his kicking but Mitchell is the beating heart of this team and we can't afford to lose that energy when he goes off. Having a game managing 9 starting and bringing on a high tempo 9 as a finisher a proven formula, it doesn't work the other way round. You can't build your team round a Mitchell and then throw in a Spencer after 60 mins and expect it to work.