Naholo to bring up milestone
HIGHLANDERS winger Waisake Naholo will play his 50th Super Rugby game in Fiji tonight but it all could have gone so differently.
Naholo (27) first arrived at the Highlanders in 2015, a player who had been one of the last picked for that season’s squad.
He had played for the Blues in 2013 but had fallen out of favour and did not play Super Rugby in 2014. He played one sevens tournament for New Zealand that year in Las Vegas in January.
He battled away for most of the year before having a breakout season with Taranaki, scoring nine tries as it went on to win the national provincial competition.
He was picked up by the Highlanders late in the 2014 provincial season and was set to be a useful reserve outside back for the team.
The Fijian, who moved to Whanganui from Fiji when he was 16, arrived at the Highlanders where he was expected to be behind Patrick Osborne and Richard Buckman.
But Buckman had a dodgy knee and Naholo took the chance to break into the starting side at the start of the season.
He did not look back. The flying Fijian played in all but one of the side’s 19 games that season as the team went on a tear to win the Super Rugby title.
He scored a 13 tries that season to break Jeff Wilson’s record.
The odd thing was that it emerged shortly after the first couple of games of the season that he had already signed a deal to play in France after the 2015 season.
But as he kept on scoring tries and breaking defences New Zealand Rugby went to work and, within a month or two, the French deal was off and Naholo was staying.
Naholo became an All Black later that year and has continued to be one of the best wingers in the country. He became the leading tryscorer for the franchise earlier this season, breaking Wilson’s record of 35 tries, and has seven tries so far this season.