@Duluth said in Looking forward to 2019...:

Debra and Wiseguy in the 23

He'll do as injury cover

Forgot about Wiseguy. He looked quite good in his brief showing last year. Puts a new spin on it for me in that case.

@Steven-Harris said in Looking forward to 2019...:

Hearing that Dan Hawkins could be back in the frame for the 2019 season returning to Northland..thoughts Taniwha heads..?

Wouldn’t be the worst thing to have him back. He’s a popular squad man that’s for sure. In terms of on field, as long as he’s not kicking from hand I’m happy. His last two seasons for Northland were quite good..a massive improvement from when he started.

Does this mean they now see J Deb as a fullback option?

Wow the NH tree hugging brigade are really taking a gamble here.

Don’t mind them scrapping club rep sides, but the union rep scrapping is a joke. It’s a big thing for young kids to get a taste of pulling on their provincial/sub union jersey. Helps aspiration..

Can see a good spin off for Auckland and Northland here. Southern parents may take their kids over the bridge and northern ones through to Wellsford.. that’s my only positive!

Thanks for the update @Steven-Harris

Sounds like a fair bit of movement going on already. Be interesting to see how our squad shapes up.

Really hope we hang on to Matich. I think he’ll be a crucial part of our loose trio this year. Can’t afford to lose that experience.

I’m anticipating a young looking side this season with some new faces from within and outside the union.

I guess it’s the norm now to only get a couple of seasons out of most players with all the opportunities abroad. So the M10 cup sides put out different looking teams from year to year, with the small core of experienced grafters keeping the foundations.

Hope Ranger comes right, won’t bank on it though. Good opportunity for Gregory to stamp his mark now.

As a side note I ran into Regan Verney over the Xmas period and he said he was real keen to come back, Although he was worried about his injury. Be good to keep an eye on his progress. Rated him for Wellington, looked set for big things until he got hurt.

Being doing well to win one! That’s the top four premiership teams..

Whilst I echo all the above thoughts on pride and passion etc, I just feel we’ve taken a slight step backwards this year. The way we have leaked points at certain periods throughout a match belies belief really.

To me it’s a mental thing, as you can see when we’re on point, we’re on point. Countless times you’ve heard in after match interviews “we went to sleep” “we buttoned off”.. that’s all in the head rather than being tired in my opinion. If you’re tired but have good mental strength, that’ll carry you through. Look at the way both Canterbury and the Crusaders apply themselves. Never say die, never out of the fight! We need to adopt that, and apply it for 80 minutes. We’ve shown glimpses we can do it, but we switch off faster than the speed of light sometimes.

Rollercoaster is the perfect way to describe following this side. Love them to bits, but hell its frustrating.

Would like to see the majority of this side stick around next year, but I’d also like to see us fill a spots by going to the market if at all possible. An out and out speedster on one wing to complement Hyland would be good. Also a super rugby class fullback would be nice. No disrespect to Matty Wright, he was good yesterday, but I feel his times coming. He’d be a good squad man to keep around for another season or two though.

Plenty to think about in the off season...

Shit damn. Whitcombe better go all Cheika on their ass at the break!

@duluth said in Steamers in Tauranga:

@j77

26-7 at half time

Knew I shouldn’t have asked.

Dare I ask for the score? Not watching thankfully..

@kiwipie said in Steamers in Tauranga:

@steven-harris For you it is really just making sure you can put the best team on the field for the weekend after - for us, we want a big win to look like we only just missed out on top 4 in the final table!

Mate, I’m going all greedy here. As much as I have a soft spot for you guys, I want to see us chase a big win. I want to see us have a crack at getting to third spot so we can have another go at those Hawke’s Bgay feckers again.. I’m sure as BOP fans you can understand that completely!