Canterbury vs Hawkes Bay
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Also Mason Kean if he can stay injury free
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@stockcar86 He is a prop right? I remember him being talked up but he hasn't been cited. What's wrong with him?
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@higgins Yeah, I'm not unhappy with this game. Result isn't the blow-out that I expected and the performance was promising. For most of the game, the defence worked reasonably well and attack was still pretty exciting. I love that Fakatava-McClutchie combo in the halves!
Flanders suffered mostly from the fact that the Canterbury forwards were so much bigger. I think he still has to get bigger and stronger before he can really compete, but that's just a matter of time.
Toala didn't get much game time, but didn't look out of place.
I hope to see all our youngsters get an invite for the NZ U20s camp this year.
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Stockcar86 said:
Also Mason Kean if he can stay injury free
The few times he played last year, I wasn't impressed but that was under Philpott. This year he didn't even make the squad. I'm hoping Tavita-Metcalfe will be better.
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This article makes mention of him playing rugby league. Maybe someone like Number10 who is closer to the action might know a bit more about his current whereabouts. http://nzrl.co.nz/rugby-league-sam-mageles-fitness-tool/
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Not sure what happened to Mason Kean this year.
He switched clubs to play for Tamatea this year (from MAC) and I only watched Tamatea once, which was against Clive in the final round Maddison Trophy match.
So he certainly was playing at the end of the club season.
He was in the initial 52-man Magpies training squad back in April but hasn't even played for the HB Development team from August onwards, and they have used over 50 players in their programme.
If he's played the local league competition since the end of Tamatea's season then I'm not quite sure why.
Personally, I think Tim Farrell and Pouri Rakete-Stones went past him last year in the Magpies setup.
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Canes4life said:
If you combine all the promising young players from Wellington, Manawatu and Hawkes Bay that could very well end up at the Canes, then there are very promising signs post World Cup.
Geoff Cridge, Tim Farrell, Lincoln McLutchie, Folau Fakatava (Hawkes Bay), Bryaden Iose, Liam Mitchell (Manawatu) Asafo Aumua, Alex Fidow, Du Plessis Kirifi, Billy Proctor, Isaia Walker-Leawere & Xavier Numia (Wellington)
That provides a fairly good backbone going forward. We just need guys like Gareth Evans to stick around to ensure there is some experience to help lead and get the full potential out of some of these players.
You forgot Flanders and Lowe, but - also in the Bay - there are Kianu Kereru-Symes, who has been a revelation after Ash Dixon's injury; Danny Toala, who only got his first run today, but who is a massive talent; Will Tremain; Josiah Tavita-Metcalfe, another young promising prop who's still waiting for his Magpies debut; and not to mention some of the talent of this year's Napier Boys squad, such as hooker Tyrone Thompson, prop Patrick Teddy, centre Leo Thompson.
Hawke's Bay's dominance in Hurricanes school rugby is coming to fruition; here's hoping that the Canes will actually sign the majority of these players instead of the Highlanders and Chiefs. I understand there's interest from the Chiefs and Crusaders in some of the forwards I mentioned.
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@stargazer Also in the Canes catchment are Naitoa Ah Koui (ranked top 3 school boy last year) and Josh Southall (ranked no 1 school boy this year) before a major pre season injury ruled him out.
Plenty of promising forwards coming through the Canes system which is great to see. We will always have the talent in the backs.
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Just finished watching. That wasn't too bad in the end. I'll echo what others have said about our young guys, as long as we keep them we should do pretty well going forward (maybe the Canes could help out by signing them to keep them in the region - would rather have had Renton come on for us than against us).
Damn McClutchie has a touch of the Cruden about him, follow him around enough and he'll put you in gaps.
Yellow Card had another decent run and actually held the ball in two hands on lots of occasions.
With Buckley on the wing I don't know why Lowe wasn't used in the midfield.
@number-10 I heard he got the pip with the HBRU (and how they treated him) when he was injured and has pretty much given the game away.
