Wellington v Manawatu
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After watching the game there was clearly one player on the park that stood out and that was Peter Lakai. Very impressive performance playing 8 and then 7 once Du Plessis Kirifi went off with what sounds like a broken jaw.
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@Canes4life you'd like to think that'd teach Kirifi a lesson but probably not. Dumb cheap shot backfired.
Only saw the highlights but Higgins ignoring Clarke on his outside in a two on one was ugly. Got some nice offloads away though.
Good to get the win anyway, but not a great performance.
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@Bones definitely not a good performance at all. Probably similar to last week where it took a couple of big plays by a couple players to get us over the line. E.g. Lakai with a couple big runs and a couple of meat pies. Higgins was a little up and down today, had a few awesome touches with a couple of bad misreads on attack. Hopefully he gets some time at 12 with Umaga-Jensen at 13. Hopefully Proctor comes back into the mix aswell.
The team will need to be a lot sharper if they want to win it again this year.
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@Canes4life Today it seemed we were relying on individuals rather than the whole team performing. JGB was rather poor as was Savea. Can see us heading down to Canterbury and getting beaten.
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@mikey07 said in Wellington v Manawatu:
@Canes4life Today it seemed we were relying on individuals rather than the whole team performing. JGB was rather poor as was Savea. Can see us heading down to Canterbury and getting beaten.
Nah Canterbury were worse than Wellington IMO. I watched that game and both Auckland and Canterbury probably showed the worst form of any team in the comp. They also have Hawkes Bay on Wednesday before they meet us on Sunday so there shouldn't be any excuses for Welly.
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@Bovidae said in Wellington v Manawatu:
I noticed that Nui Muriwai was the reserve halfback for Wellington. He would be the no.4 halfback for Waikato and this explains why he wasn't playing for the Harlequins (Waikato Dev) last Sat.
Wellington currently have a bit of a injury crisis across the board at halfback, including a lot of their club halfbacks that would usually step up. Aswell as that, Logan Henry is with Manawatu and Hauiti-Parapara is with Auckland which doesn't help. I think Mitchell McLeod should be okay again for Sunday so it's likely Muriwai will go back to Waikato.
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@Darren said in Wellington v Manawatu:
Lakai looked great, reminds me of a harder working Ardie. Possibly less highlights, but just doesn't stop working.
And why do we persist with J Savea? He doesn't offer anything.I think in time Lakai will be a bigger and better version than Ardie. He's got the frame that's made for international footy and I feel the ABs have him earmarked as Sam Cane's replacement when he retires at the end of the year. He just needs to keep learning his craft and improving.
In the future I can see him and Sititi forming a pretty awesome combo for the All Blacks at 7 and 8 together, maybe even by the next WC.
