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Highlanders bring All Black in to sure up forwards against in-form Brumbies

Shannon Frizell. Photo / Getty Images.

The Highlanders take on the in-form Brumbies at fortress Canberra on Saturday night.

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Head coach, Aaron Mauger, has largely stayed with the team from the first-round loss against the Sharks making only three selection changes to the starting fifteen.

In the forwards, All Blacks World Cup tourist Shannon Frizell comes into the starting side with Dillon Hunt dropping to the bench while Jesse Parete replaces an injured Pari Pari Parkinson in the second row. Parete’s promotion grants Jack Whetton a place in the matchday 23 for his first game of the 2020 season.

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The only change in the backs sees Patelesio Tomkinson come onto the right wing for Tima Fainga’anuku.

On the bench, Counties Manukau and Irish prop, Conan O’Donnell (who came into the squad for the injured Jeff Thwaites), gets an opportunity to impress this week

Mauger is well aware of the challenge his team will face in the capital city.

“[The Brumbies] are a tough team to play in Canberra and have a strong home record over the last few seasons, we are expecting a physical encounter on Saturday,” Mauger said.

“We took some positives out of our second-half performance last week, so we now have a good opportunity to build on that this round against the Brumbies.”

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Highlanders: Josh McKay, Patelesio Tompkinson, Rob Thompson, Josh Ioane, Jona Nareki, Mitch Hunt, Aaron Smith, Marino Mikaele Tu’u, James Lentjes (c), Shannon Frizell, Josh Dickson, Jesse Parete, Siate Tokolahi, Liam Coltman, Ayden Johnstone. Reserves: Ash Dixon, Daniel Lienert-Brown, Conan O’Donnell, Jack Whetton, Dillon Hunt, Kayne Hammington, Michael Collins, Teariki Ben-Nicholas.

– with Highlanders Rugby

Highlanders forwards coach Mark Hammet is looking forward to the challenge of the unbeaten Sharks:

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J
JW 51 minutes ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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LONG READ 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame' 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame'
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