Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Tasman Mako reveal loaded line up despite All Blacks absences for top of the table clash

David Havili. (Photo by Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images)

Tasman may have been robbed of four All Blacks, but that hasn’t stopped them from naming an experienced side laden with Super Rugby talent for their top-of-the-table Mitre 10 Cup clash with Waikato on Saturday.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tasman are one of two undefeated teams in the Premiership, having comfortably accounted for Championship sides Counties Manukau and Northland in the opening two rounds of the competition. Waikato, their closest rivals on the ladder, have also scored two big wins against Wellington and North Harbour.

Outside backs Will Jordan and Sevu Reece as well as flanker Shannon Frizell and prop Tyrel Lomax were all called into the All Blacks camp in Whakatane earlier this week and were ineligible to play in this weekend’s round of matches. They’ve been replaced in the starting lineup by Mark Telea, Alex Nankivell, Sione Havili and Isaac Salmon – men who have all had experience with Super Rugby teams.

Video Spacer

Bay of Plenty captain Lesley Elder on balancing motherhood and professional footy

Video Spacer

Bay of Plenty captain Lesley Elder on balancing motherhood and professional footy

Captain David Havili, who returned to action last weekend having sat out the better part of two months with a fractured thumb, will shift from the midfield to fullback to take Jordan’s place. The returning Nankivell slots in at second five.

Telea, also back from injury, takes Reece’s spot on the wing while the rest of the backline remains unchanged from last Friday’s win 54-21 victory over Northland.

In the forwards, Crusader Havili takes over from Frizell, effectively allowing the Mako to operate with dual opensides. Havili will accompany Hugh Renton and Jacob Norris in the loose forwards.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFahKqvgNxa/

39-year-old Alex Ainley shifts from the bench to the second row and Salmon comes in at tighthead prop in the only other changes to the team.

ADVERTISEMENT

Saturday’s match, played in front of a Tasman home crowd for the first time this season due to COVID related restrictions, kicks off at 2:00pm NZT.

Tasman: David Havili (c), Mark Telea, Fetuli Paea, Alex Nankivell, Leicester Fainga’anuku, Mitch Hunt, Dwayne Polataivao, Hugh Renton, Sione Havili, Jacob Norris, Te Ahiwaru Cirikidaveta, Alex Ainley, Isaac Salmon, Andrew Makalio, Isi Tu’ungafasi. Reserves: Quentin MacDonald, Ryan Coxon, Samuel Matenga, Mahonri Ngakuru, Braden Stewart, Louie Chapman, Tim O’Malley, Tima Fainga’anuku.

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 2 hours 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.

144 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ 'Springbok Galacticos can't go it alone for trophy-hunting Sharks' 'Springbok Galacticos can't go it alone for trophy-hunting Sharks'
Search