Highlanders wings starved
Waisake Naholo, three games, 178 minutes and no tries.
Tevita Li, three games, 240 minutes and no tries. Richard Buckman, one game, 80 minutes, and no tries. Josh McKay, one game, 80 minutes, and no tries
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out which part of the Highlanders’ game needs to improve for the game against the Blues in Auckland tonight.
Their wings have been starved of opportunities and are yet to score a point.
Even in an era of improved defences, line speed and bigger and fitter athletes who can reduce the space available, there is something very un-Highlanders about the try drought out wide.
The sight of Naholo or Li doing some damage out wide has been a familiar one for Highlanders fans over recent years but not so much this year.
Tevita Nabura’s season-ending knee injury before a ball was kicked did not help matters but the lack of opportunities for the speedsters is still a concern.
‘‘Highlanders rugby is all about speed and getting the ball to the width,’’ new No 10 Marty Banks acknowledged yesterday.
‘‘Obviously that’s a key focus for us and when you’ve got guys like Waisake, Bender [Ben Smith] and Tevita and our midfield, we want to get the ball into their hands as much as possible.
‘‘We probably haven’t scored many tries in the width and that’s where we want to score them.’’
A quick glance at the try scoring charts explains why it is a concern for the Dunedin franchise.
Rieko Ioane (Blues) and Etene NanaiSeturo (Chiefs) have grabbed four tries while Ben Lam (Hurricanes) and Crusaders fullback Will Jordan have three apiece.
For the Highlanders, standout loose forward Shannon Frizell is the leading try scorer, with four tries in just three games.
One complication the Highlanders must battle is the continued absence of firstchoice No 13 Rob Thompson.
Thompson injured an ankle in round two against the Reds and the Highlanders have missed his presence in the outside channels.
Sio Tomkinson has brought a real physical edge to the defence but there is no doubt that Thompson will slot straight back into the midfield when he makes his likely return after next week’s bye.
Until then the backline as a collective must take responsibility to feed the wings and set up a mouthwatering head-to-head between Naholo and All Blacks team-mate Ioane.
‘‘Obviously if Waisake runs around behind the posts and makes it an easy kick it’ll be happy days. When you’ve got threats like that you want to give them the ball and hopefully we can do that this week,’’ Banks said.
The game, however, continues to be put in context by the horror of the Christchurch shootings last Friday.
Blues midfielder Sonny Bill Williams will miss the fixture as he offers his support to the Christchurch community and Highlanders co-captain Ben Smith said it had been ‘‘a sombre week’’ of preparations.
‘‘We know tomorrow night we can go out and play 80 minutes of rugby and try and do that as well as we can and that will give people a bit of an outlet to watch that game and support us for that 80 minutes,’’ Smith said yesterday.
‘‘But we realise it’s been a sombre week and the team is feeling it.’’