Highlanders victory great for Tasman [KK]
Marty Banks makes a break during the Super Rugby Final between the Hurricanes and Highlanders.
The Highlanders are Super Rugby champions and so too are five of our Tasman Makos.
Alex Ainley, Joe Wheeler, Marty Banks, Ross Geldenhuys and Shane Christie featured in Saturday's 21-14 win over the Hurricanes in the Super Rugby final and I thought all five had an influence on the game.
I thought they all played their part extremely well and added to the success story.
Those boys playing in that cauldron of that competition is going to be a great spinoff for us. There will be a huge range of benefits from the mental side and the physical side and the experience side.
I thought it was an outstanding final and it really did have everything, there was all the drama and a little bit of controversy.
The Highlanders have flown under the radar but I think that has always worked in their favour, because being under the radar is often a good place to be.
They key to the Highlanders' success has been winning the close battles. Success breds success and winners are grinners, so if you start knocking off some pretty big names earlier in the competition, and you're flying under the radar, it's a little bit of stealth.
I thought the Highlanders were the best team on the night and thoroughly deserved the title. They rattled the Hurricanes magnificently and put them off their game. Some of the average decisions that the Hurricanes made were probably down to the fact the Highlanders put them under so much pressure and that is your battler attitude coming out pretty strongly.
I know from my own experience down there that the players themselves are a tight knit group and they feed off that underdog attitude and they do it really well.
While the Super Rugby has just wrapped up, we are now down to the business end of the club rugby season too, with the semifinals looming on Saturday. Waimea Old Boys will take on Kahurangi and Wanderers will play Marist.
I went to watch Kahurangi versus Stoke at the weekend just gone but I didn't get a lot of benefit out of it as it was a 100 pointer, with Kahurangi winning 100-3, but I was just there to watch a few individuals.
Waimea Old Boys were beaten by Nelson on the weekend and it was probably a timely wake-up call for a team that has been pretty dominating, along with Wanderers, in the Nelson competition and the Tasman Trophy.
I never have too much expectation on who will reach the semifinals but, for me, the two teams that have improved out of sight are Kahurangi in Nelson and Moutere in Marlborough. There are always shifts of power in the club scene and that is down to a number of reasons, but good on both teams, they have both been the surprise packages this season and that is down to the work and preparation they have done.
