Highlanders 2023
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@Stargazer Maybe not, they should be prioritized, All the other Aussie and Island franchises are averaging 5 Kiwi players per side possibly more. They could surely see the Landers would have depth issues from the beginning of the season.
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@SBW1 How would you "prioritise" (whatever that means) the Highlanders if they are not pursuing a player? Why would Jacob Norris wait - while not being paid - for a player in NZ to get injured, if he can get a paid injury replacement contract in Oz? NZR has no contractual relationship with NZ players without a contract and can't tell them to stay in NZ. And we're hardly at the beginning of the season anymore.
The depth problem at the Highlanders has multiple causes. One of them is obviously recruitment. Another one is something that affects all franchises: uncontracted players that used to stay in NZ and play local club rugby are now going overseas (mostly MLR, some others Japan or Europe) to play and be paid for it. How is NZR supposed to keep those players in NZ? Where's the pot of money to pay those players to play local club rugby to wait for a SRP player to get injured? That's not what the Silverlake money is for, so where's the money coming from?
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@Stargazer The Highlanders could indeed resurrect their season maybe they could get to playoffs. It is not too much of a stretch, they do have people coming back from injury and they have a lot of young talent in their ranks. Next year they will have a new coaching regime. Cannot say I have been following them that closely however, I do agree with what the article says, it should be about having all five franchises being strong.
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Put together your guys best 15 of players who don’t start for blues chiefs hurricanes crusaders
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@Stargazer said in Highlanders 2023:
One of them is obviously recruitment
The region they represent is tiny compared to the others. The region doesn't create as many players as other regions so will always be importing players.
Using the 2019 numbers
Region Population Blues 1.396m Chiefs 1.333m Hurricanes 1.019m Crusaders 0.797m Highlanders 0.337m They are not even half the population of the next smallest side. Southland is a fixture at the bottom of the NPC and Otago never got qualified for the premiere division in all the years of the two tier 14 team comp
For the Highlanders to be successful with that local base, they need to be extremely good at recruiting and holding players
They've lost a few young players from their age group sides to another franchise. Perhaps NZR should look at transfer fees when that happens?
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@Yeahtheboys Ollie Norris, Tyrone Thompson, ? Quin Strange, a Chiefs lock , Tom Robinson lately? Lakai, Taine Plumtree, Ratima, Ioane, AJ lam, Dallas McLeod usually wouldn't start, in terms of 13 it's easy to say PUJ but Bryce Heem still has value in super, Kini Naholo, Zarn Sullivan
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Reserves at other NZ franchises
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Ollie Norris
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Dane Coles
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Marcel Renata
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Josh Lord
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Selby-Rickett / Gardiner / Ah Kuoi
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Tom Robinson
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Blake Gibson
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Brayden Iose
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Perenara / Ratima / Heinz
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Morgan / Love / Sullivan / Perofeta / Ioane
(Anyone other than Hunt) -
Bailyn Sullivan
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Alex Nankivell
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Brayden Ennor
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Bryce Heem
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Sullivan
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@Yeahtheboys I like the idea however in terms of catchment size, Super rugby has pretty much abandoned chosing purely from their designated catchments for a number of years. The list of players is from each team's immediate reserve stocks. What would probably be more useful is using excess players from the development and academies.
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@SBW1 said in Highlanders 2023:
What would probably be more useful is using excess players from the development and academies.
This bit maybe difficult to get across the line,Most Super Rugby sides will not want to put money and resources in to their Academies to feed other teams .
They lose the odd one or two now anyway and you could call some of them excess and some top end Academy players.The hard part is making the Highlanders attractive enough to attract players and not have the other franchise teams doing it for them.
I think the Highlanders are on the right track with their academy they have some promising players and they are signing them early.
That promise is just going to take time to develop. -
@SBW1 said in Highlanders 2023:
I like the idea however in terms of catchment size, Super rugby has pretty much abandoned chosing purely from their designated catchments for a number of years.
But the teams have physical locations
Using NZR's numbers above the Crusaders & Highlanders have 23% of the population but the have 40% of the NZR pro contracts
The Blues & Chiefs regions have 2.729m people and have the same number of NZR pro contracts as 1.134m
The competition depends on a constant supply of NI talent to the SI
Rather than forcing that flow to continue I would like to see restructuring of SR so the regions are more aligned with where the players come from. When you tell a player he must move to Dunedin a percentage will go fuck it I'll go to Tokyo, Toulouse wherever..
That doesn't mean killing the Highlanders (They would do fine in a comp with 3 SI sides & 6 NI sides...)
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@Duluth I agree and that is how it started out in the late 90s, they were far more provincial in their origins in terms of where players came from. I think we need to curb the overseas exodus, I don't know how that can be done, whether that means allowing private equity money into the comps who knows.
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@Yeahtheboys
Nankivell is not a reserve, he's just currently injured. He's consistantly been in the starting XV for many months now. -
@friedrugby said in Highlanders 2023:
@Kiwiwomble Your fullback needs to be better than, 'solid' though - needs to be a game-breaker. At some point, as opposed to saying X player would be better with better players around him, perhaps it is the fact that all of them aren't very good.
thats putting the cart before the horse, lets work on the guys losing us games and get at least 23 solid players before worrying too much about game breakers...also, Gilbert is (was) the leading point scorer in the comp so he doing ok in my book
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In terms of player criticism it is a strange starting point to launch with the players who are actually going ok.
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@SouthernMann yeah, 10 and 13 are the real issues IMO, if we do manage to spark anything outside 10 (rare) its either through TUJ making a break....but then we have no one outside him to keep it going....or if it goes through the hands it just goes into contact at 13
after those its wings, i dont think we're giving them much to work with but they're not looking for it either
and injuries, we can see these guys get better with multiple games, FF has largely shaken off his first couple of games and is looking lively. these guys just aren't going to improve if they are getting one or two games before needing a break
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@Kiwiwomble said in Highlanders 2023:
@SouthernMann yeah, 10 and 13 are the real issues IMO, if we do manage to spark anything outside 10 (rare) its either through TUJ making a break....but then we have no one outside him to keep it going....or if it goes through the hands it just goes into contact at 13
after those its wings, i dont think we're giving them much to work with but they're not looking for it either
and injuries, we can see these guys get better with multiple games, FF has largely shaken off his first couple of games and is looking lively. these guys just aren't going to improve if they are getting one or two games before needing a break
I think you're wrong about Lowe here. He goes looking for work all the time and comes off his wing regularly to get that ball (resulting in a few try assists) and has also been strong on defence. His problem is that he doesn't get noticed because he's such an introvert that he hardly even celebrates his own tries. He's having a good season.
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@Stargazer thats fair, youre right he's been good and like the others i think he's getting better the longer run of games he gets, really settling in
i really do miss seeing a wing recieve the ball, beat a couple of guys or run around them and score, Nareki obviously can do that when fit...Vahaakolo was also good and standing up his man and getting around him...but then we have to go back to Naholo and osbourne
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@SouthernMann I'd say all of our backs have been OK - which is part of the issue. Look at the likes of Stevenson, Moorby, Perofeta, Jordan etc. These guys get the ball at the back and run into gaps.
I will say, I think our tactical kicking is poor, which means we don't get nearly enough ball in broken play, and I'm unsure whether this is through pair option taking by the players, or just a poor gameplan.
