They won the safe seats and also managed to turn marginal seats into Labour strongholds.
The Highlanders are not the Labour Party but what they need to do is keep the safe seats and then turn those marginals into strongholds.
Most other New Zealand franchises possess many more safe seats than marginals in their squads.
The safe seats are in essence the players who can be relied upon to always perform — the top line All Blacks and those high achievers who turn in good games week in, week out.
Players such as Anton Lienert-Brown, Dane Coles and Joe Moody.
The Highlanders, though, have only two current All Blacks while the Blues have four current All Blacks in the front row.
So the Highlanders need the next tier — the marginal players — to turn up and get better, to become safe and reliable players. Not enough have done this in the past couple of years.
Too many players have come along looking for a chance to take the next step and simply not achieved it. Josh McKay is a prime example. He had a chance, he has talent but for whatever reason he just did not make the step up. Actually he makes too many mistakes and is naive in his play, which are the main reasons he has been exiled.
But the Highlanders need to convert more nuggets into gold.
A few years ago, Malakai Fekitoa came along as the last player picked for the team and was called into the All Blacks within six months. Richard Buckman blossomed after starting as a training squad member as did Waisake Naholo, Matt Faddes, Gareth Evans, Jackson Hemopo.
But over the past few seasons too many players in the Highlanders have come along and not taken the step up. They have stayed on the margins which in the end have become too easy to ignore.
Ship 10 players in, have a look at them and then ship the bulk of them out after a couple of years.
Some have climbed the mountain over the past couple of years — Jona Nareki and Josh Ioane are two examples.
But not enough.
Nareki was the obvious and really only candidate to win the rookie of the year award at the team awards after last season. The franchise needs more than half a dozen candidates to be vying for the prize.
This is what next year’s Highlanders team has to do. Get better individually as a team and as players. Some will not be able to do it, simply because they are not good enough. But players such as Sio Tomkinson, Mitch Hunt, Billy Harmon, Josh Dickson, Manaaki Selby-Rickit, Fetuli Paea have to go to that next step.
If more do it and come in out of the margins and become safe and reliable players — safe seats — then it could be a more of an election party for the Highlanders. The only worry for them is they wear blue.
There are obvious questions about the squad — will Liam Squire get on the field and make an impact? Is Solomon Alaimalo able to come back as good if not better? Will Nehe Milner-Skudder get back to anywhere near his old form? Is this the last season for Aaron Smith?
But the biggest question which has to be answered in the affirmative is how many are going to take the big step up?
