Ref apologises to Crusaders in challenge confusion
Seasoned internationals, a Highlanders rookie who was homeless as a teenager and a talented cricketer who chose rugby ... Joseph Pearson picks his rookie favourites for the season ahead.
Crusaders skipper Codie Taylor was incorrectly denied his captain’s challenge amid confusion about the ruling in yesterday’s game of three halves against the Blues and the Chiefs in Cambridge.
After Jacob Rat um a it avukiKneep ken sscoredt ogive the Blues the lead in the second stanza on a fiercely hot Waikato afternoon, Taylor asked referee Paul Williams for a captain’s challenge, a new rule in Super Rugby Aotearoa.
Williams waved away the All Blacks hooker’s challenge but there was a breakdown in communication and the official realised his mistake after the high-scoring half, which the Blues won 26-19, and he apologised.
‘‘[The issue] was about the language you use in referring [for a challenge],’’
Taylor said.
‘‘The ref actually got it wrong and apologised afterwards. But he’s learning as well. It’s better to learn here
[in pre-season] than next week.’’
Captains will get one referral per match and have 10 seconds to ask after a try has been scored.
The Crusaders earlier beat the Chiefs 21-14 in the fixture’s first half, but the defending champions didn’t get through their visit to Hautapu’s Memorial Park unscathed.
David Havili went off in the first minute because of a head knock and is doubtful for their opener against the Highlanders in Dunedin next Friday, as is Will Jordan, who went down with a rib injury after a heavy tackle.
Despite their defeat the hosts would have been happy to see All Blacks captain Sam Cane get through his 40 minutes comfortably after a late return to preseason.
The Blues and the Chiefs contested the final half and the Auckland side won 14-7 for two wins from two, concluding a workout full of brutal intensity despite all the customary chopping and changing of players in pre-season.
The Chiefs hosted the games at short notice given changing Covid-19 alert levels.
When Super Rugby Aotearoa kicks off on Friday with the Highlanders taking on the Crusaders in Dunedin, it will feature 26 new players signed with New Zealand’s five franchises for 2021.
Of the rookies getting their first taste of the professional game, provincial players finally stepping up to the top level, and seasoned internationals keen to have a crack among New Zealand’s elite, the Sunday Star-Times has selected 10 new faces to watch out for.
BLUES Sam Darry (Canterbury)
Darry’s move to Auckland bucks the trend of the Blues losing talent from their region. They’ve pinched one from the Crusaders.
The 20-year-old from Christchurch, a Christ’s College product, was rising through the ranks with the Crusaders’ academy. He was selected for the New Zealand Schools team and the under20s programme, and played for Canterbury in last year’s Mitre 10 Cup.
Surely the Crusaders, the reigning champions, would be the next natural step in the promising lock’s progression? Not quite.
Blues coach Leon MacDonald called Darry, asked if he fancied heading north, and he signed a threeyear contract before making his Mitre 10 Cup debut.
Any youngster offered a Super Rugby deal before donning provincial colours is clearly highly thought of, but his decision to move to the Blues was interesting because he was wanted by the Crusaders, who for once couldn’t keep one of their homegrown talents.
Zarn Sullivan (Auckland)
Who will play fullback for the Blues with star All Blacks playmaker Beauden Barrett in Japan?
The Blues are not short of exciting, talented replacements, but it’s not clear which of them will wear the No 15 jersey in their opening match against the Hurricanes in the capital next Saturday night. Sullivan, the younger brother of Chiefs outside back Bailyn, who also attended King’s College in Auckland, is one of those prospects, in just his first year as a professional.
The 20-year-old, who trained with the Blues in the inaugural Super Rugby Aotearoa, was Auckland’s fullback in their run to last year’s premiership final and impressed with his skills, athleticism and composure.
CHIEFS Josh Lord (Taranaki)
Lord has been on the Chiefs’ radar since excelling for Hamilton Boys’ High and steps up to Super Rugby after two provincial campaigns with Taranaki.
The 2.02m lock is a workhorse, something he has demonstrated throughout the Mitre 10 Cup, and his height and reach are invaluable assets for any lineout.
He was brilliant for the amber and blacks last season and made big strides with his performances.
The Chiefs have seriously missed Brodie Retallick in their second row, and although the All Blacks lock might return from Japan in time for Super Rugby’s planned trans-Tasman competition in May, his absence gives rookies such as Lord, who turned 20 last month, more opportunities.
With young Waikato lock Laghlan McWhannell expected to miss most of Super Rugby Aotearoa because of knee surgery, Lord is one of just three fit specialist locks in the original squad, with All Black Tupou Vaa’i and Naitoa Ah Kuoi.
Xavier Roe (Waikato)
Roe’s return to Waikato last season, after two indifferent years with Taranaki, sparked the best form of his career and the Chiefs were quick to snap him up.
The 22-year-old, born in Hamilton but raised in the Coromandel town of Pauanui, was the star of the first round of last year’s Mitre 10 Cup when provinces had most of their All Blacks available.
The Mooloos rampaged to a 53-28 victory against Wellington, but Roe was receiving most of the plaudits for his lively display when All Blacks halfback TJ Perenara was his opposing No 9.
The Hamilton Boys’ High product, a former New Zealand under-20s representative, is a sharp, decisive operator with good acceleration, a sound passing and kicking game,
New Zealand Rugby’s embrace of a possible private equity investment has received the blessing of Sir Graham Henry — as a way to revive the country’s ailing community game.
Henry, an All Blacks coaching great, has grown increasingly anxious about the state of the grassroots game and rugby’s decreasing hold on young people.
That concern has prompted him to speak out in favour of private equity investment — in the expectation that NZ Rugby bosses will run a fine-tooth comb over the $465 million Silver Lake proposal, and remove any devil that might be lurking in the detail.
‘‘Obviously they are doing their due diligence and are looking at it very seriously I would imagine,’’ Henry told the Sunday Star-Times.
‘‘And they have got a third party [investment bank Jefferies] who are giving them an opinion on the whole proposal, so they are doing everything they can to look at all the detail and make sure it’s okay.
‘‘And it’s not as if Silver Lake are taking over NZ Rugby – it’s a small percentage.
‘‘But if it’s all good – and I’m reasonably confident it would be – I’m excited that the extra money can help the game, help the clubs and the schools, looking at the community game.
‘‘It’s the community game that I’m particularly interested in.’’
Henry believes that Covid-19 aside, the professional game is in good shape. He can even live with South Africa’s departure from Super Rugby and what that might mean for the longer-term development of New Zealand players.
But he paints a sobering picture of the ‘‘brittle’’ community and schools’ game that simply isn’t catering for enough young people at present, with the community game only held together by an ageing group of volunteers, who desperately need more help on the front line.
‘‘Our game needs an injection of expertise and finance,’’ he said.
‘‘The community game is shaky, brittle . . . and it needs a lot of thought and innovation to get the game humming again.
‘‘We haven’t got enough people involved in the game, I don’t think.
‘‘Since the game has gone professional, the people who have supported the game have got into an older age group, and younger people are not putting the time they put into the game they used to, during the amateur years.
‘‘So we need to expertise into schools and clubs, interest again.’’
He says NZ Rugby needs to have a fundamental rethink of how the game is packaged for young people, so that it appeals to the vast majority who don’t get anywhere near the elite level.
‘‘They need an innovative product and it won’t be the product the All Blacks are producing,’’ he said.
‘‘It’ll be a different hybrid of the game, at different levels, and maybe played at different times.
‘‘Maybe it’s not a Saturday afternoon game any more, or Saturday morning. Or let’s have a national competition and a New Zealand team that plays amateur under 85kg rugby.
‘‘It’s just another way of catering for a wider group of people.’’
The 2011 Rugby World Cup winner also sees worrying gaps in the schools system, where young people are being lost to the game.
For example, Henry said the Crusaders First XV competition was doing a good job of trying to keep youngsters in places such as Ashburton interested by setting up composite sides.
However, that picture was not replicated throughout the country and he called for greater links between schools and local clubs.
‘‘I think some of our communities are disadvantaged by the lack of competitions where they are,’’ the former high school headmaster said.
‘‘At the minute a kid in Kaitaia probably doesn’t have that opportunity [of the Crusaders First XV comp].
‘‘And if they had a composite side in Kerikeri/Kaitaia and that great area that played in the Blues First XV competition, it would cater for those kids.
‘‘The clubs need to take over some of the secondary school rugby.
‘‘I didn’t think I’d ever say these things, but I think a lot of the kids who are going to some of these schools are not being catered for.
‘‘The clubs need to work with these schools and ensure there is rugby for these young people.
‘‘What Silver Lake will do, hopefully, is provide the finance to put it into the community game and develop it.’’
Former All Blacks coach Sir Graham Henry says ‘our game needs an injection of expertise and finance’. to generate