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Jamie Joseph names 2025 Highlanders Super Rugby Pacific squad

Jamie Joseph of the Highlanders looks on ahead of the Super Rugby Pacific Pre-Season match between Highlanders and Hurricanes at Forsyth Barr Stadium on February 10, 2024 in Dunedin, New Zealand. (Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images)

Jamie Joseph has named his Highlanders squad for the DHL 2025 Super Rugby Pacific competition.

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The 2025 squad features many new players, including the addition of new head coach Jamie Joseph who coached the Highlanders to the historic 2015 Super Rugby title.

“It’s great to be back leading the Highlanders. Dunedin and the wider southern region have always been a place that has provided opportunities for players to grow and develop. It’s a community that loves rugby, respects the game, and values hard work. My job is to ensure that we create an environment where players can blossom, not just as athletes, but as individuals who carry the game’s core values with them. We’ve got a very talented squad this year, and I’m excited to see what we can achieve together.”

Joseph has added Cody Brown to his coaching staff, the brother of former Highlanders coach and current Springboks attack coach Tony Brown.

Brown and Joseph will be joined by last year’s head coach Clarke Dermody as well as Dave Dillon to round out the 2025 coaching staff.

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Experienced Highlanders players return to the squad, including All Black prop Ethan De Groot, All Blacks XV players Saula Ma’u, Fabian Holland and Oliver Haig and halfback Folau Fakatava.

Impressive NPC campaigns for Timoci Tavatavanawai, Thomas Umaga-Jensen, Nikora Broughton, Sean Withy, Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens, Michael Manson and Cam Millar have earned them another full playing contract.

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The Highlanders have added Hurricanes loose forward and Manawatu player TK Howden, who will bolster the loose forward stocks for Jamie Joseph’s squad.

The forward pack will welcome the additions of Blues hooker Soane Vikena down south, as well as tighthead prop Sosefo Kautai (NZ U20, Chiefs, Brumbies) and loosehead prop Josh Bartlett (NZU20, Chiefs, Western Force) to improve the tight five.

Young players like Caleb Tangitau from the Blues, Will Stodart and Finn Hurley from Otago will be looking to stake their claim for starting jerseys.

Additions to the backline will further develop Joseph’s headaches for selections, including Taine Robinson from Tasman, who has been impressive in NPC over multiple campaigns.

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Veveni Lasaqa from the Hurricanes and Bay of Plenty will join the squad’s forward pack, as well as 30-year-old Tongan Lui Naeta who has been plying his trade in Japan before returning for Otago in this year’s NPC competition.

Head coach Jamie Joseph has high hopes for his new squad.

“We have a squad full of talented and motivated players, and we know that the fans in Dunedin and across the region are looking forward to seeing this team grow and perform on the field,”added Joseph.

“This region has a proud rugby history, and it’s our responsibility to make sure we honour that by playing with passion and commitment. We’re not just developing players on the field, but also people who represent the values of this community.” 

2025 Highlanders Super Rugby Pacific Squad

Backs: Folau Fakatava (Hawkes Bay), Nathan Hastie (Otago), James Arscott (Otago), Cameron Millar (Otago), Ajay Faleafaga (Otago), Taine Robinson (Tasman), Jake Te Hiwi (Otago), Thomas Umaga-Jensen (Otago), Tanielu Tele’a (Auckland), Josh Whaanga (Otago), Sam Gilbert (Otago), Michael Manson (Southland), Caleb Tangitau (Auckland), Jonah Lowe (Hawkes Bay), Timoci Tavatavanawai (Tasman), Jona Nareki (Otago), Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens (Taranaki), Finn Hurley (Otago)

Forwards: Ethan de Groot (Southland) , Daniel Lienert-Brown (Canterbury), Josh Bartlett (BOP), Saula Ma’u (Otago), Rohan Wingham (Otago), Sosefo Kautai (Waikato), Henry Bell (Otago), Jack Taylor (Southland), Soane Vikena (Auckland), Fabian Holland (Otago), Mitch Dunshea (Southland), Oliver Haig (Otago), Lui Naeta (Otago), Will Stodart (Otago) Te Kamaka Howden (Manawatu), Sean Withy (Southland), Hayden Michaels (Southland), Veveni Lasaqa (BOP), Hugh Renton (Tasman), Nikora Broughton (BOP)

Unavailable for the 2025 season due to injury: Josh Timu and Tom Sanders

Watch the exclusive reveal-all episode of Walk the Talk with Ardie Savea as he chats to Jim Hamilton about the RWC 2023 experience, life in Japan, playing for the All Blacks and what the future holds. Watch now for free on RugbyPass TV

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Comments

10 Comments
R
Red and White Dynamight 8 days ago

Great signing for the Highlanders, would have made a good AB coach too. Tough bastard but loved by his squad.

S
Skinny Pins 9 days ago

How is it NZ brags about it's centrally controlled national model, yet Brodie McAllister sees more of a future going to the Chiefs to warm the bench for Taukeaho than go start every game for the Highlanders? Ditto Brayden Ennor, or Dallas McLeod, one of whom will see little game time at the Cru. And on and on we could go, citing so many other players who could start for the Highlanders but are content to be outside the top 23 at one of the other 4 major franchises. Surely this is where NZR should intervene and make sure guys of that calibre go South and PLAY PLAY PLAY. But no, be a wider squad guy at the Blues, Cru, Chiefs or Canes and play hardly any Super Rugby and still you are better placed for national honours. Look at Karifi. No even a starting Cane but captain of the AB XV. No wonder NZ rugby isn't what it once was. If you want to be an AB, go somewhere you can start matches and show what you have got against the other guys competing to be ABs. Don't go be their training opponent on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's pathetic Mark Robinson al lo ows this to happen. He is so weak as a leader for our sport it isn't funny. He's rugby's Jacinda, or Kamala.

O
Otagoman II 8 days ago

Direct contracting by the franchises has helped do this. In the past you had a protected 23 or so but the rest was in the draft. Selection was earnt after NPC each year. A player signs on for 3 years so the team is committed to them and meanwhile another player develops well and gets an AB jersey and quickly enough you get stockpiling.


Something should be worked out that gaps in some teams should be traded. I can't see them stopping direct contracting these days though.

J
JW 9 days ago

Ahh no raz daz signing in the end huh. Thankfully the did get Tele'a over the line in the end but that's only going to be a team that's scary when everythings clicking and all are on the park. Lets hope they get lucky with injurys this time round!

O
Otagoman II 9 days ago

Joseph has taken a risk with only naming two specialist locks. Would of been nice to keep Will Tucker to back Holland and Dunshea up.

U
Utiku Old Boy 9 days ago

Agreed. Looks very light in the locking stocks. Whats up with PPP? Will Tucker was full of effort and +2m. Agree with SC - Haig is developing well as a 6 but will get dragged into the second row and Holland will be worked to the bone.

S
SC 9 days ago

Every other NZ franchise selected 5 specialist locks. But Joseph foolishly signed two specialist locks one of whom, Dunshae, is very injury prone. Holland is going to get played into the ground by the Highlanders and Haig who could have been a serious option for All Blacks at 6 after a good season of SRP will now have to play lock.

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JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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