Highlanders

And I think New Zealand have...

And I, I picked on, I remember one, I remember watching the opening weekend of Super Rugby, and that, the breakdown show, and Jeff Wilson, he was talking about my beloved Highlanders beating, uh, this one of the reasons I remember it, obviously my beloved Highlanders, not Phil's beloved Canes-

Mm.

Or JV's beloved...

Yeah, why not?

Yeah.

[laughs] Um, but the Highlanders beat the Crusaders, and they kick the ball, like, 38 times in the match.

And Jeff Wilson came on the breakdown, and rather than say, "Good win for the Highlanders," he said, "That is not New Zealand rugby.

Saturday, Chiefs and the Force at 5:00, followed by the Blues and the Waratahs again on this, the premier game on the Saturday night.

And then Sunday, we've got my beloved Highlanders coming up against Dr- the Drua at 2:00, and the Canes, the champion Canes, playing the Reds at 4:30.

And can I just say, sort it out.

How is this happening again? It's not ANZAC weekend, so we don't need to do the Australia, New Zealand sort of fake game.

And then on the, the...

I mean, it's almost...

It's annoying, 'cause they've put the Highlanders [laughs] again against another team that I wouldn't mind seeing.

When it was against Mana Pasifika last year, and you're like, "Oh, why do we have to have the Highlanders against another team that's kinda awesome?"

I don't think he got a contract at all, and then Southland came calling.

And then he played a little bit for the Highlanders after that.

And then I think he got let go from there as well, but who knows how that-

Mm

Probably, you'd imagine he'll come back to the Blues, just obviously if he's living in Auckland.

But I guess there's a few of those-

Are the Highlanders over here?

There's never-ending stories of players who s- who turned up and spat out at Auckland-

But good, really, really good super rugby players.

Neil Brews, Otago Highlanders guy.

So they came in.

I can't remember who else came in, but there would have been a few more.

stuff.

I'd very much like to see Geordie shift at the centre and bring in Timothy from the Highlanders at second 5'8".

I think...

I think Geordie's good enough to play centre.

Yours please.

Gentlemen, in last week's pod, Tony Lyle was requesting the whereabouts of the Highlanders mascot from the early 2000s, I think it was.

He was actually a bouncer at the pub I worked at in 2003 in Dunedin.

His name was Warwick.

it is exclusively against men and yeah Otago did go on to lose that game which is humorous

Yeah, I feel like the mother of Whakatawa was like, you know, second string All Blacks halfback for a long time there, and then all of a sudden he's just dropped off.

Well, he was under the tutelage of Aaron Smith down at the Highlanders for years and years, and you were like, all right, he's just waiting for his time to pounce.

And...

I haven't met a nine that doesn't annoy me.

No, you can't be an All Blacks 9 legend without being tossed around by a South African, because let's not forget what Dwayne Vermeulen did to Aaron Smith for the Stormers vs Highlanders either, threw him around like a bit of a ragdoll.

But I did find it very entertaining how Corbis just single-handedly managed to flip Roy God off like that.

They, there's a, he can take up a profession, a career in WWE because just a little bit of a flip from, from Corbis resulted in a very dramatic, you know, 180 degree flip.

So I'll carry on.

Mate, what about your own aspirations? You brought up 50 for the Highlanders already, mate.

I know you're a massive Highlanders man and you're back there and you're really proud to represent the Staggies.

What's the next steps for you? What have you put in place to make sure that you get everything you want out of the 2026 season?

Yeah, you know, I'm proud to play for the Southland team and proud to represent the Highlanders as well, you know.

I'm born and bred Southlander and that's all I ever wanted to do as a kid, so obviously next steps and goals are obviously to become an All Black and to do that you've got to play well consistently and so that's something that I've been trying to do and put processes in place to get my weeks right and get my personal performance right, but Something else that drives me is having team success with both these teams I'm involved with.

We had a taste of a little bit of success last year with bringing the Shield home, but we haven't been consistent enough.

To do that and have team success with Southland and the Highlanders is something that drives me just as much as to have individual accolades and get to the next level.