JUMPING THE HIGHEST HURDLES FIRST
With Lima Sopoaga leaving for Wasps, the Highlanders will start the season with a new No 10 for the first time since Chris Noakes steered the ship in 2012’s opener. While they’ve got a fairly settled line-up, it might take some time for whoever wins the job as first-choice No 10 to get comfortable in the role. However, the team is built to be able to accommodate that with speed on the wings and some good play-making options across the backline.
They’ll have plenty of grunt up front for the backs to feed o , with an impressive selection to draw from in their loose forward stocks; expect the Highlanders to move the ball through the hands this season.
But while it’s all well and good to be scoring points, the questions for the Highlanders should be around their defence.
In 2018, they conceded more points than the Brumbies and Stormers, who both missed the playo s, and the eighth-placed Sharks.
If they’re hoping to be serious contenders for the Super Rugby title again, they cannot finish the regular season with a negative points di erential. Schedule-wise, you’d imagine the Southerners will be happy to have all their New Zealand derbies out of the way with five rounds to play.
While they head on a two-game trip to South Africa late in the piece, by the end of round 12 they should have a fair idea of their situation in terms of playo seeding.
For the past few seasons, the Highlanders have always been a reliable contender for one of the low playo seeds.
Even when they won the title in 2015, they went into the playo s as one of the three lower seeded teams.
Since then, they’ve featured in every playo series – seeded from fifth to seventh each time. In 2019, you can expect much of the same.