Highlanders

The Highlanders (currently known as the Speight's Highlanders for sponsorship reasons) are a professional rugby union team from New Zealand that compete in the Super Rugby and Super Rugby Aotearoa tournaments. The team regularly makes the knockout rounds of Super Rugby and were crowned as the tournament's champions in 2015.

On this page you can discover everything there is to know about the Highlanders Rugby Club. As well as reading more about the team's history and professional record, you can see their squad, upcoming fixtures and latest results.

When the Highlanders Rugby Club first joined the Super 12 (now Super Rugby), they were known as the Otago Highlanders. In their first season in the competition, they finished eighth. The year after, their slow start to the competition worsened and the team finished bottom of the table.

However, in 1998, 1999 and 2000, the team qualified for the knockout stages of the competition. But, the Highlanders Rugby team failed to win the title during this period because they were knocked out in the semi-final stage twice and lost the final once. Even when the team reached the knockout stage again in 2002, they were beaten by the Crusaders. It marked the third time in four seasons that the Crusaders defeated the Highlanders Rugby team in the knockout stages of the competition.  

Following this, the Highlanders Rugby team entered into a bit of a barren phase and it was over a decade until they reached the knockout stages again, when they lost the qualifier to the Sharks in 2014. But, the year after, they won the competition for the first and only time in the history of the franchise when they defeated the Hurricanes in the final. Since then, they've reached the knockout stages of the competition every season.

Although the Highlanders Rugby team haven't been as successful as some Super Rugby franchises, several notable international stars currently play for the Highlanders Rugby Club, including Aaron Smith, who has been capped almost 100 times by New Zealand.

In addition to this, the team also contains a number of international players, such as Kazuki Himeno, Jermaine Ainsley and Fetuli Paea who have been capped by Japan, Australia and Tonga respectively.