I got to chat with the ref after the game

Check out our Mitre 10 Cup season preview, available on:

• Youtube
• Podcast https://anchor.fm/drivingmaul/episodes/Mitre-10-Cup-2019-Season-Preview-e4rmqq

We'll bring you the DrivingMaul Mitre 10 Cup show every monday at 8pm reviewing the last round of action, talking about the hot topics and looking forward to the next round.

Also I'll be at over 20 games bringing you pre-game, halftime and post match reports as well as post match player and coach interviews. That will all be on https://twitter.com/DrivingMaul

Cheers Paul aka DrivingMaul

Looking forward to being at this game, look out for my post match interviews

We are starting our buildup to the Mitre 10 Cup on New Zealand Sport Radio.

The aim is to interview a coach from all the provinces before the start of the tournament

First up is Southland with head coach Dale MacLeod going live at 6pm this evening. Tomorrow it's the turn of Tasman with skills coach Gray Cornelius

My post match interviews from last night

Hello All
Another cracking round of rugby in the Mitre 10 Cup. Is it time for Canterbury to panic? How good are BOP looking? Can anyone stop Tasman? Steven Harris and I will talk about all of that on The Mitre 10 Cup Show this evening at 8pm.

the recording will be available on YouTube or via podcast https://anchor.fm/drivingmaul
My post match interviews from the weekend:
Northland v Auckland &
North Harbour v Counties Manukau &
Bay of Plenty v Waikato &

Cheers Paul

My chat with Rivez Reihana after Waikato training today about his first season in the Mitre 10 Cup

Looking forward to previewing the NZ Super Rugby conference this evening at 8pm

Already previewed the Africa and Australia conferences over the last 2 weeks:
Africa - https://drivingmaul.com/2020/01/07/super-rugby-africa-conference-preview-rugbychat-ep122/
Australia - https://drivingmaul.com/2020/01/14/super-rugby-australia-conference-preview-rugbychat-ep123/

Cheers Paul

Very late but here are my post match interviews from both the Miter 10 Cup and Farah Palmer Cup games:

Starting tomorrow morning we'll be producing a morning Sports News Show. Initially it will be broadcast on Facebook and the recording put out as a podcast.

For tomorrow we'll host it on my DrivingMaul channel but this show won't be rugby centric and we'll be setting up new pages etc... for the channel.

The idea is that over time we will add in other shows to grow the content out to be an online NZ focused Sports Radio Channel. We have a number of ideas how this will look and I'm sure that vision will evolve over time.

Any suggestions or thoughts would be much appreciated.

@antipodean I don't agree with his 10 team professional competition but I do think kids staying with their clubs is a good idea. Trying to get players to come back to clubs after school is one of the reasons that club rugby is really struggling with numbers (note one reason not all the reasons)

@Nepia Yup I've just lifted them from Wikipedia. Still is there a larger catchment population than Tauranga that isn't serviced by a Super Rugby franchise already?

If so I'm happy that city is put in place of Tauranga. Either way I don't think South Auckland is a great place for a 6th franchise. I get when a Pasifika team would want to be there though

@Nepia Oh it would need a new stadium

Even Bay of Plenty would like to have all their games in Tauranga rather than Rotorua as no one turns up. I get the cultural and historical link but Rotorua is a non-starter financially

@booboo Got to agree the school rugby doesn't make sense for the sport or players to me.

Ngarimu Blair made the point recently and I agree with him that kids should keep playing in their clubs not disappear off to school and never come back

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/opinion/300173111/super-aotearoa-new-zealand-rugby-miss-a-trick-as-mori-players-suffer?fbclid=IwAR3VqLh76Jig6Ma3W12Zlky1d7usDwr02RXg4iXTKCYtYvlYiNrrVUFJqRA

Looking at population if there's going to be another SR franchise then it should really be in Tauranga so that it has a population base and doesn't eat into the other franchises that can't fill their stadiums already

1 Auckland 1,470,100
2 Christchurch 383,200
3 Wellington 215,100
4 Hamilton 176,500
5 Tauranga 151,300
6 Lower Hutt 110,700
7 Dunedin 106,200
8 Palmerston North 81,500
9 Napier 66,300
10 Hibiscus Coast 59,800
11 Porirua 59,600

During the post match media conference for the Maori All Blacks v Moana Pasifika, Ash Dixon suggested the if there's a Pasifika Super Rugby side why not a Maori one as well

Do you think this could be the future for the Maori All Blacks rather than just a couple of games a year tacked on to the end of the season?

Great to have Cameron George on the Stand-Off show last night, also Brad goes through his 2020 awards

We'll be getting to the below games this weekend bring you reports on our Facebook Stories and post match interview on our Facebook Page:

Fri:

• 16:45 North Harbour v Bay of Plenty (Farah Palmer Cup)
• 19:05 North Harbour v Canterbury (Mitre 10 Cup)

Sat:

• 11:35 Waikato v Taranaki (Farah Palmer Cup)
• 14:05 Waikato v Wellington (Mitre 10 Cup)
• 19:05 Counties Manukau v Tasman (Mitre 10 Cup)

Sun:

• 11:35 Northland v Auckland (Farah Palmer Cup)
• 14:05 Northland v Manawatu (Mitre 10 Cup)

@Stargazer didn't realise that Dwayne Polataivao was heading down there.

He's been on our DrivingMaul show several times recently and didn't say anything!!!

You can hear from Gray Cornelius about the Tasman squad and them having change in the front row