Hore happy to help out Otago in final

Former All Blacks hooker Andrew Hore has answered an Otago SOS as they prepare for Friday night’s NPC final against North Harbour.

The 38-year-old hasn’t played first-class rugby for two years but a hooking crisis has him suddenly in the mix for the Mitre 10 Cup final in Dunedin.

Otago tried unsuccessfully to have All Blacks tourist Liam Coltman cleared to play. And with regular to ensure the importance remained.

Provincial rugby was an audition for young New Zealand players who are pushing for the Super Rugby level.

New Zealand’s five Super Rugby coaches would once study provincial rugby intensely before assembling their squads at the end of the provincial competition.

Players, who could play their way in or out of Super teams on the basis of their provincial form, hooker Sam Anderson-Heather battling a calf injury Otago are down to just Sekonaia Pole being fit to start at this stage of the week.

Hore turned out at Otago training yesterday after coach Corey Brown called him on Saturday night to check out his interest in helping.

Brown said Hore didn’t hesitate to make himself available.

Brown backs Hore’s experience and desire to see him through if he would steer intensely at their phones on a specific day in November waiting for a call to indicate if they had or had not been picked up by a Super team.

In the meantime, the rugby public would speculate as to who would end up with which team. That has now disappeared as well.

The current contracting environment means the Super Rugby contract list is all but filled for the next season before the provincial competition even starts gets to play.

‘‘He reckons he’s fit enough, so we’ll go with it,’’ Brown said.

Hore’s place will be dependent on Anderson-Heather who faces a late fitness test on his troublesome calf.

World Cup winner Hore’s last test for the All Blacks was in 2013.

The winner of Friday night’s final will gain a place in the top division next year. in August. Fewer and fewer players are now gaining their Super Rugby shot from what they do at provincial rugby level.

It seems schoolboy rugby is making a play at overtaking provincial rugby in terms of the platform to audition for Super Rugby.

Super Rugby officials are now scouting schoolboy rugby to find their next group of players. The Chiefs signed Damien McKenzie out of Christ’s College and those type of deals are becoming more and more common.

Promising rugby players as young as 15 now require player agents as scouts try to trump everyone else in terms of getting their hands on the best young talent.

By the time players who have obvious Super Rugby potential