New Highlanders pre-season winning over young players

New Highlanders coach Clarke Dermody is implementing his own take on the Super Rugby Pacific preseason, his tactics have received glowing reviews from one of the team's youngsters as a number of promising talents begin their professional rugby journey in the unfamiliar deep south.

Dermody assumes the head coach role at a time of rebuilding for the Highlanders club, bringing in seven rookies for the 2023 campaign as the team builds around future stars like Falou Fakatava, Ethan de Groot, Marino Mikaele-Tu'u and Thomas Umaga-Jensen.

Aaron Smith's veteran presence will help steer the ship for 2023, but the All Blacks' all-time most-capped back has hinted that the 2023 Rugby World Cup campaign will be his last outing in a black jersey, which often coincides with players of his calibre taking up a higher paying contract overseas.

Nikora Broughton is one of the rookies getting his first taste of life as a Super Rugby player. Earlier in the week, he and the team were in the pool for a stress and pressure training session with Dave Wood. During the session, the players were put through a number of exercises underwater, Wood said the purpose was to better the players' understanding of stress and pressure.

"When you're under the water," Wood explained. "The stress and the pressure comes in really fast and it's what you do with that stress and that pressure in that moment, in that dynamic situation that they can then take and apply to the field.

"All that we're trying to get them to do, is to get them to be able to do more with less, so to be able to prolong what we call the easy phase of the breath hold, and that's all about their ability to shift into a calm state in dynamic situations."

Having learnt how to better deal with the agitation of the body's fear response, the team headed for Te Anau, specifically Burwood Station, where they tried their hand at sheep shearing.

“All that stuff is new to me," Broughton told Stuff. "I’m definitely out of my comfort zone giving stuff like that a crack but I’m a southern man now.

“I even got to go hunting the other night. I shot my first deer, which was bloody amazing.”

The unorthodox training methods were dreamt up with the goal of bringing the team together and promoting trust within the relationships being built in the team. Staff were also included in the activities.

Coming off a strong season with Bay of Plenty in the NPC, the 21-year-old Broughton was lapping up the experience of being in the Super Rugby environment.

“It’s definitely a step up,” Broughton said of Highlanders training. “It's definitely harder.

“But it's been good getting around the boys and learning all this new stuff and new trainings and pushing my body. It’s been bloody awesome.”