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'They're gonna cause a few New Zealand teams headaches'

(Photo by Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)

Expectations for the Fijian Drua may have been low heading into the Super Round against New Zealand’s number one team on the ladder, but Blues head coach Leon Macdonald insists his side were never planning for an easy game.

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The Drua completed a win over the Rebels and nearly had a dramatic upset over the Reds over the first half of Super Rugby Pacific against the Australian teams.

After a physical encounter where the Blues weren’t able to play their natural game, Leon Macdonald said that the other Kiwi teams will have problems to deal with.

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“No, not at all. They only lost by a few points to the Reds.

“You look at all their games and they’ve been right in the middle of it all year and I think we were expecting this sort of game. We didn’t want it to get loose and scrappy like it did but we expected it.

“They’re gonna cause a few New Zealand teams headaches.”

The natural attacking instinct of the Fijians make the Drua such a difficult team to defend as the Blues found out when numerous short grubber kicks caught them off guard.

Macdonald said they are ‘not like any other team’ and their attacking style forced the Blues out of their normal game. He noted their set piece scrum had also improved which would hold them in good stead moving forward.

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“They’ve been fun to prepare against because they’re so different to every other team,” he said.

“They’re not like any other team, they’re really unique. I think that’s what [unclear] their style’s different. The way they attack the game is refreshing and we’ll sit here frustrated because we were unable to play the game we wanted to because they didn’t allow us.

“They’re fantastic athletes, some real firepower in terms of their ability to create something out of nothing.

“And I thought their scrum, which has been under the pump a little bit this season, really held strong and they showed a lot of fire with the maul which has been a little bit under the pump this year.

“So they’re getting better in the core parts of the game which is gonna make them even more dangerous.”

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After beating the Crusaders in Christchurch last week and the Chiefs in Hamilton the week before, Macdonald said the team had to ‘reset’ as they don’t have a bye week this year.

The side had a few days off before their clash against the Drua but will ramp up the training now they are on the road.

“We did a bit of a reset at the end of the Crusaders game because we don’t have a bye this year and we knew we had to take a couple of deep breaths and mentally, physically have a bit of break,” he said.

“So we had a few days off and got ready to go again. I think just getting on the road, we’ll get a little more work in. We had a few lighter weeks, the Chiefsand Crusaders weeks, and now we can get on the road and get some good training in.”

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J
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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