Rugby: 'The guys have an inner confidence'

Steve Cumberland
Steve Cumberland
Highlanders general manager Roger Clark says the franchise is thrilled with its start to the season and now it is time to continue the good work.

The Highlanders are the only unbeaten New Zealand team in the competition, leading the conference and sitting third in the overall table.

The side was winging its way to South Africa yesterday and was due to start training in Johannesburg late today.

The Highlanders play the Bulls in Pretoria on Sunday morning (NZ time) and will travel to the city from Johannesburg on the day of the game.

They will then leave immediately for Cape Town to play the Stormers on March 12 (NZ time).

Although the South African trek is daunting - taking on the two finalists from last year on their home turf - the Highlanders should have some degree of confidence after their opening two wins of the season.

"We have to be pretty pleased with that, but the guys have an inner confidence and we have had a pretty good game plan."

He praised the coaching team of head coach Jamie Joseph and assistant coaches Kieran Keane and Simon Culhane, who had instilled confidence in the players and trained them hard.

Scrum coach Steve Cumberland joined up with the team late last week, and was on the plane to South Africa.

He has finished his coaching commitments in Japan and will now be the fulltime scrum coach for the franchise, as well as working with provincial sides in the South.

After the two games in South Africa, the Highlanders will return to face the Crusaders at Carisbrook on March 19.

More than 10,000 turned up last Friday night, and Clark hopes for an even bigger crowd for the Crusaders game.

"With a 5.30pm kick-off, that enables people from Southland and Central Otago to come in and we would hope to get a few Cantabrians down here.

"We would hope to get a pretty good crowd together for that one and looking at perhaps up to 15,000."

The Crusaders have been forced to look elsewhere to host home games after AMI Stadium was damaged in the Christchurch earthquake.

The franchise has shifted its next two home games to Nelson, but Clark said it was too early to talk of Dunedin or Invercargill hosting any additional games.

The Crusaders were set to host the Highlanders in Christchurch on April 23, Easter Saturday, but that match will have to be shifted.

Clark doubted the Crusaders would shift home games outside their region, but the Highlanders would help any way they could.

Meanwhile, the large video screen was not at Carisbrook on Friday night and Clark said it had been canned for the year.

It came down to affordability and until the franchise could draw greater crowds, and make money, then there would be no large video screen.

A screen is believed to cost more than $10,000 a game to run.

The large scoreboard at Carisbrook was also not working and with the last rites about to be given to the ground, it would not be repaired.

An alternative smaller scoreboard was brought in from Central Otago for last Friday night's game and worked well.

 

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