Can Highlanders end drought?
Could this finally be the one for the Highlanders? At home, under the roof in Dunedin, against a Crusaders side on a stunning fall from grace, is this the southerners’ golden chance to end their Super Rugby Pacific derby drought?
Come tomorrow, it will have been 1121 days since the Landers last tasted victory over a fellow Kiwi side.
They have registered 18 wins in that time, but have just not been able to find a knockout blow over any local rivals.
Should Clarke Dermody’s seventhplaced side break the rut, and be the latest ones to pile more misery on the struggling red-and-blacks, it will also go a massive way to securing them a playoff spot.
That contest is where we begin this week’s Super Rugby Pacific stat chat (with a shoutout to our mates at Opta and Rugby Database for their continued fine work). 19
The Highlanders have now been on the losing side of a whopping 19 New Zealand derbies in a row (for an average losing margin of 16.1 points). That dates all the way back to April 16, 2021, when they beat the Blues 35-29 at Forsyth Barr Stadium during the Super Rugby Aotearoa competition.
With captain Billy Harmon and Jona Nareki injured, this weekend’s 23 remarkably features just two Highlanders survivors from that game, both of them props, in Ethan de Groot and Ayden Johnstone.
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Unless the Crusaders win every game from here, they will finish the season with the most losses they have ever suffered in one campaign.
Their eight defeats sits equal with their maiden season in 1996, where they ended with a two-win, one-draw, eight-loss record and finished in last place.
Among the Crusaders’ carnage, Sevu Reece has been a standout on the right, and now left, wing, on his return from a ruptured ACL in March last year.
And, in scoring his try against the Reds last weekend, he not only went equal-top on the competition tryscoring chart (with the Blues’ Hoskins Sotutu), with nine, but also brought up 100 tries in first-class rugby.
He is one of only five current New Zealand players to have achieved the feat.
Is it the irresistible immovable object?
In what promises to be a humdinger of force against the an encounter between the top two sides on the table, look to an intriguing first-half battle, with the ladder-leading Hurricanes having scored the most first-half tries of any side (30) and the Blues having conceded the fewest (eight).
Here’s an eerie one. Both men wearing the No 14 jersey in this contest − Mark Tele’a for the Blues and Josh Moorby for the Hurricanes − share equal top spot on the competition’s chart for clean breaks, with, you guessed it, 14 apiece.
Tele’a topped the count in this category last year with 24, two ahead of team-mate Caleb Clarke.
They might be fourth on the table, but the Chiefs have still outscored their rivals so far this season, having now racked up 383 at 38.3 per game.
On the back of their 56-7 romp against the Force, they will be hungry for more.
Despite this year being without All Blacks lock Brodie Retallick, the Chiefs boast the best lineout percentage in the competition, with 87.3%, losing just 15 of their 118 throws.
But will that continue, for a pack that has now lost Jimmy Tupou, Josh Lord and Samipeni Finau to injury, and who also won’t have Naitoa Ah Kuoi risked this week so sees fringe flanker Hamilton Burr covering the second row?
Moana Pasifika have the worst-functioning lineout, at 78%, after coughing up 31 throws, joint worst with the Crusaders.