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Ex-All Black predicts when the Highlanders losing streak against NZ teams will end

Folau Fakatava of the Highlanders celebrates scoring a try during the Super Rugby Pacific Pre-Season Match between Crusaders and Highlanders at Methven Recreational Reserve on February 16, 2024 in Methven, New Zealand. (Photo by Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images)

Ex-All Blacks first five-eighth and two-time Super Rugby champion Aaron Cruden can see the Highlanders ending their 17-game winless streak against rival New Zealand teams this year.

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After a disastrous 2023 season which saw the Highlanders battle to avoid the wooden spoon, they have started 2024 with two impressive performances.

Although they weren’t able to defeat the Blues in Super round, they showed they can match it with the best of the New Zealand sides with a 37-23 loss.

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The Highlanders started last season with a 60-22 defeat to the Blues and a 52-15 loss to the Crusaders, highlighting just how far they have come.

Former Chiefs playmaker Cruden believed we have seen enough from the Highlanders that showed they will beat one of the New Zealand teams.

“I can, I really can, based on the first couple of weeks,” Cruden told Sky Sport’s The Breakdown panel.

“That’s just based on effort. A lot of it is just based around the effort plays. The comrade, the connection you can actually see on the field.

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“They’ve got some star power all across the park. That guy [Folau Fakatava], I was going to highlight. I think he’s had an outstanding start to the season.

“They’ve had to make almost double the amount of tackles in the last two weeks, compared to their opposition.

“And they are over 90 per cent success rate, 93 is it, there you go. That is attitude personified right there and that’s where you can see the unity within the group.”

The Highlanders last win over a Kiwi side during the regular season was nearly three years ago, a 35-29 win over the Blues in 2021.

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Ex-All Black Stephen Bates predicted the drought would be broken against the Hurricanes, Black Fern Chelsea Semple picked the Blues but Cruden saw the Highlanders trumping their southern rivals.

“I feel like the last one they won was against the Chiefs, was it?” Cruden said.

“But I’m going to go the Crusaders probably. The battle of the south, I think they will get up for that one and potentially tip them up.”

The Highlanders were able to beat the Crusaders 41-14 in pre-season and will meet in round 12 in early May.

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J
JW 1 hour ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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