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'I feel for the players': Jamie Joseph's reflection on falling short again
By Henry Lee
Another close Super Rugby Pacific encounter for the Highlanders, another close defeat.
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This time the close loss was in Perth where Jamie Joseph’s side led at halftime before a red card to Sean Withy and a yellow card to Jona Nareki invited the Force back into the game.
The round eight defeat for the Highlanders was their fourth straight loss, which all have been under a 10 point margin, showcasing the Highlanders inability to close out games in 2025.
Highlanders head coach Jamie Joseph was clearly disappointed with the result, but admits he feels sorry for the players, who are putting in the effort to get back on track.
“I feel for the players, a lot of effort gets put into to each week. We have a very young team, I think our average age is about 22,” Joseph told media post-match in Perth.
“I guess that sort of manifests itself when pressure comes on and then compounds when we try and make up for things, and then we get yellow and red carded, and that’s that’s kind of the area that’s where we find ourselves in at different points of the game.”
Highlanders captain Timoci Tavatavanawai explained that he was happy with the way his team was defending in periods of the game, but he admits they lost the key moments.
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“I was just trying to calm the boys down and just nail the job and we were happy with how, how we coped on defence,” Tavatavanawai said after the match at HBF Park in Perth.
“We didn’t allow any major mistakes, but we can, can’t really play with it, and means we need to capitalize on any mistakes.”
When asked about how he can keep his playing group’s confidence high, Tavatavanawai said it’s all about taking away the positives from each game.
“For us, we’re just gonna have to learn from the mistakes we’ve had, but we are going to focus on what’s next.
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“Like Jamie (Joseph) said, it’s a young team, we’ve just got to keep the positives up so that we keep our players morale up, in a way that there are positive learnings around the field.”
Despite the loss, Joseph gives credit to the Force, who have a number of Wallabies at their disposal.
“They’ve got some pretty good players that are playing international footy, so playing international rugby, there’s a level of competitiveness that that you need to have.
“If you’ve got, 10 or 11, International players, I know it’s around that number they don’t lack confidence because they’ve been around.
“The tricky part for them, would be to put them all together and their coach has done an awesome job doing that.”
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Some great leadership quality from Big Jim, he facilitated for large parts then put the responsibility on himself at the end drive the team forward in the last desperate minutes. He also filled in for Withy extremely well, adding real strength to the maul.
The Force have been playing very well this year indeed, and their stars did make a couple of key players, the main factor though is definitely what I reported in the previous article “
“. Like Jim I thought the defence stood up strongly for large parts, but they may just have some structural issues, where it’s just not paying off. They had Lawaqa on the wing all day, allowed the Force to make a dozen linebreaks, why? Both there attack and defence look a bit too fancy for me, why? Common Joseph, the youngest team with the least cohesion/most new guys, it look overly complicated.
I hope it clicks. Manson in particular looked to be trying far too hard when he came on, what’s been said in his ear? Stick to you lane son and don’t make any mistakes, don’t lose the game for your team. Should be a comfortable win next week against Drua if they keep there heads up and come back stronger. Lasaqa might be best to come off the bench, would keep Jim at 12 but I’d like Tele’a to come back to the side, though TUJ hasn’t been bad and style might suit Drua more. Hopefully Renton or someone with some size is at 8 or 6, Lasaqa appears to be more an 8 actually, similar to Sititi and I wouldn’t mind if he was groomed behind him and Sotutu. Lennox I thought could make a good halfback but isn’t ready, I’d hope Arscott, Fakatava, or Pledger could return to the side. Other than Drua theyve got Cheifs twice, though the home game is the last of the round/season so potentially a gimme if the Chiefs repeat previous years tactics. The Crusaders and Moana at home are also very doable. Those four wins could see them crash into the top 6 still.
Sadly Highlanders don’t appear to have the depth in players to compete with the teams that do despite some brave efforts. Can’t see the making the top 6
I can easily see them beating the Saders at home. 4 wins outa 6 is definitely not outa the equation with some of their key players returning. I’m sure Renton will be an edge, JRK could return as the form fullback if they’re lucky, Robinson has been superb, especially with his kicking, but maybe more accustomed back at fullback when Millar comes back. TUJ has been given an opportunity to fight for his jersey now that he’s fit, but he still is probably behind Tele’a and Jim in terms of contributions. Nareki is back now, really depends on how much work the tight five can put in. Felt the Force caught them out on the weekend with the driven maul, they’d probably been expected to be put under pressure scrumagging.
Agree - young and exciting team, their time will come.