Attitude’s what sets Highlanders apart
I’ve been trying to figure them out all season but I’ve given up. Some things are beyond explanation, like true love and why some people have so much trouble with the concept of parallel parking. The Highlanders are like that. They are Super Rugby’s imponderable.
How can you possibly analyse a team that runs midfield plays off Mark Reddish and Alex Ainley, or one that keeps winning games despite holding on to the ball for fewer minutes than any team bar the Cheetahs, or one that kicks more often than any team bar the Sharks? How can you begin to understand how, with all that, this side still manages to score more points per game than any other playoff hopeful other than the Hurricanes?
This is the strangest rugby team ever assembled, playing the weirdest brand of footy since the Southland Boys’ High School Old Boys, aka the Satanic Verses, invented the ‘‘Braveheart’’ kick-off. There’s Lima Sopoaga with banana kicks for territory from the halfway line. There’s Patrick Osborne putting up high balls for Marty Banks to chase and regather, both seemingly unaware of the fact that they are intentionally messing with the natural order of things. There’s Malakai Fekitoa doing, well, doing whatever the hell he wants to, by the looks.
To sit and watch the Highlanders is to find yourself in a parallel universe in which everything is somehow more frantic, more frenetic, and more chaotic. The Highlanders don’t belong on a rugby field — they belong at the top of Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree. I’m half expecting Moonface and Saucepan Man to be named in this week’s starting line-up. Hell, they already have the Barracuda and the Oracle.
Speaking of the Oracle: has there been a more influential rugby player than Ben Smith in the history of this competition? Since his debut in 2009, Smith has run for more metres, made more tackle breaks, and made more line breaks than any other player in the competition. Last weekend he played his 100th match for the Highlanders. He’s missed only four since his debut.
Some players have time on the ball, and then there’s Smith. Entire states have fallen in the time Smith takes to decide what to do with a possession.
The competition’s most
unorthodox team, against the competition’s
most innovative.
If he were any more relaxed he’d be sitting on his goal-line, smoking a pipe, while reading about himself in tomorrow’s newspaper. When he gets the ball, 14 blokes breathe a sigh of relief, and 15 others hold their breath.
And then there’s this forward pack to consider. What is it with these pests? They force more turnovers than any other pack all while allowing the second most ruck wins per game. They are the rope-a-dopes of rugby; they’ll give you a chance to fire as many shots as you like but they’ll find a way to land a knockout blow. Better still, they actually don’t have to do much of the turnover work. The top four turnover players in the team are Fekitoa, Naholo, Smith and Osborne. Last time I looked, they were the outside backs.
Normal service simply does not apply in this team. Two of their top three tacklers are front rowers. That’s ridiculous. The halfback kicks more than a first five-eighth. Ryan Tongia played one game, scored two tries, and then was promptly demoted. Richard Buckman’s been back five games and already has 55 tackles, at 93 per cent. Dan Pryor is 90kg dripping wet (and 40 of those kilograms is dreadlocks) and yet he started last week at No 8.
And yet, with all their oddness and all their idiosyncrasies, the Highlanders will line up against the Chiefs in Invercargill this weekend knowing that a victory will assure them of a play-off spot. The competition’s most unorthodox team, against the competition’s most innovative. Who knows what they’ll bring to Rugby Park. For all we know it’ll be a flying wedge or a ball up the jumper, or a freshly laid trail of deepfried oysters to sidetrack Ben Tameifuna. What we do know is that they’ll have plenty of fun doing it.
They may be part of a serious business, but they know it’s just a game. That might be the one thing I do get about the Highlanders. And it’s certainly the thing I love the most.