{"id":556562,"date":"2026-03-22T07:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T07:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556562\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T07:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T07:36:15","slug":"jamie-josephs-simple-take-on-where-the-highlanders-are-struggling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556562\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Joseph\u2019s simple take on where the Highlanders are struggling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Conceding 50 points at home is never a good sign in Super Rugby Pacific, and it\u2019s starting to concern Highlanders<\/a> head coach Jamie Joseph<\/a>, who had a simple but telling outlook on where they currently sit.<\/p>\n

The Highlanders have now lost two straight outings in Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> after a promising start to the campaign, this time going down to the high-flying Hurricanes<\/a> in Dunedin.<\/p>\n

A Cameron Roigard double during the first half helped the away side pull away from the Dunedin-based franchise, where Joseph\u2019s side struggled at lineout time once again.<\/p>\n

Highlanders hooker Jack Taylor<\/a> has starred for Joseph\u2019s side around the paddock during this year\u2019s competition, but the lineout as a whole has been below par, especially in the past couple of rounds against the Force, Crusaders, and Hurricanes.<\/p>\n

Against the Hurricanes, the men from the deep south had their lineout functioning at 71% from their 17 attempts, compared to the away side\u2019s 82% from eleven lineouts.<\/p>\n

Joseph\u2019s team are yet to have the bye in the 2o26 Super Rugby Pacific competition, and are coming up to play their seventh straight game in the competition, against Moana Pasifika<\/a> in Auckland<\/a> this weekend.<\/p>\n

The Highlanders head coach, who spoke to media in Dunedin post-match on Friday night, believed his team just aren\u2019t accurate enough at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, we started well, we then made a lot of mistakes, which led to points and then we were chasing the game,\u201d Joseph said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich we shouldn\u2019t have been so stressed about, we just had to get back into the game, giving penalties away, and it just sort of unfolded that way.<\/p>\n

\"Team Set Plays \"Team <\/p>\n

100%<\/p>\n

Restarts Received Win %<\/p>\n

70%<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, yeah, that\u2019s the most disappointing thing, because the Highlanders are a good rugby team. We do need to understand that you\u2019ve got to be accurate at times as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s probably the biggest disappointment for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joseph said that it\u2019s not about the effort and intent of his players, more so the inaccuracy of their performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, there\u2019s two things, again, like, if you\u2019re making unforced errors, it\u2019s hard, and giving penalties away and then coming on trying to make an impact and getting carded.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not around purpose, intent, it\u2019s just about being more accurate as a rugby team, individuals, we\u2019ve got to take some responsibility around that, and therefore we\u2019re playing against pretty good side, so they punished us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conceding 50 points at home is never a good sign in Super Rugby Pacific, and it\u2019s starting to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-556562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}