Highlanders’ Dunedin may be scene of massive Super Rugby Pacific upsets
Phill Gifford runs through five talking points on the eve of Super Rugby Pacific – including his colleagues’ “rogue” snub of Jonah Lomu.
Writing before the Chiefsand the Crusaders play in Hamilton, I’ll back the professional odds makers at the TAB, who see them as the teams who’ll play the final of Super Rugby Pacific.
Why? Because the more rugby changes, the more it sometimes stays the same, and the tight core will forever be crucial to victory at the highest level.
Lock is a position at All Black level that looked stretched, even before Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock moved on.
The locking stocks on team sheets in Super Rugby felt even more threadbare after Blues’ captain Patrick Tuipulotu was ruled out for several weeks with a broken jaw.
By contrast, the Chiefs will open the season with not only 25-test All Black lock Tupou Vaa’i but also Naitoa Ah Kuoi, a player of limitless promise, and another All Black, Josh Lord, up their sleeve.
The Crusaders will be led by the man now the most experienced All Black lock, Scott Barrett, partnered by the gifted Quinten Strange, who might have been an All Black in 2022, if not for tearing ankle ligaments while training with the extended squad.
Add in the fact both teams have experienced, talented front rows. That’s why I’m tipping the Chiefs and the Crusaders to be lining up when the final kicks off on 22 June.
Coach Rob Penney was absolutely right when he said Will Jordan missing the whole Super season with a shoulder injury isn’t just a blow for his Crusaders, but for rugby fans in general.
Jordan is one of the most gifted, exciting players in the game, but I’m surely just one of a horde of fans who also love the fact his brilliance is matched by his modesty. After he scores a breath-taking try, he’s the antithesis of English Premier League footballers, who run for the cameras and adoring fans, not to the teammates who have provided the pass from which the striker scored.
I’m not advocating a return to the head-down, slightly embarrassed behaviour that boomer-generation players affected after a try. But there’s something hugely charming about Jordan illustrating a great line from the comedic genius John Clarke, who once said: “Kiwis don’t like to admit they’ve won a race. It was just that nobody finished ahead of them.”
If there’s one Kiwi Super team you’d wish could live the fairytale of the Wrexham football club in England, the outfit bankrolled by movie star Ryan Reynolds, it’d be 30-1 outsiders, the Highlanders.
They’ve got nine Super rookies, and a team with so many young players coach Clark Dermody has made a point of saying “you almost have to take them on a journey of why we’re doing it”.
If they make the playoffs it’d be close to a miracle, but on the other hand, with Jamie Joseph, a true Landers legend, now on the coaching staff, I genuinely believe Dunedin may be the scene of some massive upsets in 2024.
As a rugby tragic I’ve always enjoyed armchair critics, like me, picking line-ups of players from different eras – selecting a fantasy team that will never play, but revive memories, and spark controversy.
So this week, as someone who has reported on every Super Rugby season since the competition began in 1996, I was fascinated by the Herald’s best of all time Super sides. But I was stunned by the fact that neither Winston Aldworth, in his Pasifika side, or Will Toogood, in his Blues squad, found a place for Jonah Lomu.
Come on guys, without Jonah Lomu there we wouldn’t even have Super Rugby. His amazing play at the 1995 World Cup put rugby on the world map, and before Rupert Murdoch coughed up $US555 million to buy television rights to southern hemisphere rugby, he told his negotiator, Sam Chisholm, that the deal would only be signed if “we have the big guy [Lomu]”.
Rupeni Caucaunibuca, who Winston and Will preferred, was a freakishly gifted player. But, as he’s said himself, his problems with alcohol made him erratic. Jonah Lomu was the dominant wing in not just New Zealand rugby, but the world game, from 1995 to 2000. Trust me guys, if your lives depended on a try being scored, the man you’d really want the ball being passed to was Jonah.
The most enjoyable rugby spectator experience in decades was the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2022. A huge element in that was the lack of boorish drunks in the stands, as family crowds thronged Eden Park and the Northland Events Centre.
Gregor Paul’s suggestion of alcohol-free zones for Super Rugby makes a lot of sense, and, if combined with family ticket packages even lower than the pretty reasonable current deals, could serve the great dual purpose of more fans at the ground, and introducing kids to the game.
