All Blacks lose Sam Cane and Dane Coles for rest of the year

Dan Carter

Johhy Wilkerson

I would fully expect SA to have great depth with every position with the player numbers in your country. I agree with your sentiment, as NZ also has about 4 who now, or with one more season, while couldn't match the class of Dmac, could have been there instead of Plummer. That's not including the 3 or 4 youngsters that just left to go offshore and make way for this new group (you will see a couple in this years URC so can compare). Obviously it's hard to compare our opinions of people we would put in that sort of 'class', but I watched the SA URC teams post RWC and nothing stood out to me. I think that is mainly a coverage issue for 'foreign' fans though, as you probably also followed those players from watching school rugby and CC, where as I am just trying to spot the potential in every single player on the field that I don't recognise etc (a tough ask).

Oh, version, lol my bad. Yep, even the Highlanders could have been taken out of that comp (maybe add 1 island team to keep numbers even). The same negatives that applied previously still apply for South Africa (hence my suggestion for their own comp) though, just in lesser amounts, perhaps.

He's already got 10kg on Josh Lord, who's is a fine player, but can't seem to put on any weight to his 106kg frame. Probably why he breaks every few games.

Hoping Pledger gets his chance at the Highlanders next year, been surprised Otago has used him pretty sparingly. NZ almost gone from only one proper option at 9 to several in short time. Hopefully we can hang onto them all.

Some will be lost to league or Japan, most will just never make the step up, or some NH side is already sizing them up as a 'project' or looking for a long-lost grandparent somewhere.

Too much importance placed on the U20s when most times a lot of those players fall by the wayside or aren't superstars at the next level.