Neria Fomai returns after a week off with injury, and first five-eighths and NPC leading points-scorer Harry Godfrey is rested.
Due to rotation, there are six changes to the starting XV, with swaps for the props, a bench seat for rising-star lock – and NPC Duane Monkley Medal points joint-leader – Hunter Morrison, and flanker Cooper Flanders returns in the No 7 jersey.
The Stags have been regarded as an NPC thorn in the Magpies’ side, although Hawke’s Bay have won eight of the unions’ last 10 clashes since their 20-20 Ranfurly Shield draw in Napier in 2012.
There’ve been four Magpies wins in five matches in that time at Invercargill’s Rugby Park, where winds could average over 20km/h, with temperatures below 7C.
For the Magpies, paying just $1.06 at the TAB, it’s a reboot after a testing Wednesday journey south with stopovers in Wellington and Christchurch.
Frank Lochore, at Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union headquarters, fresh off the training field. Photo / Doug Laing
Lochore, growing up on a Central Hawke’s Bay farm, played in Hereworth’s First XV in Havelock North, but missed the Ross Shield primary schools’ tournament as he was too big.
He had his first big taste of captaincy in his last year in the Napier Boys’ High School First XV, in 2019.
Finishing training at Dagg Field, Napier, on Tuesday, Lochore reflected on what grandad told him.
“He did give me tips about captaincy when I was a captain of the Napier Boys’ First XV,” he said.
“He said keep a calm head. If people see you’re rattled, it will affect the whole team.”
That advice has been deployed across a range of roles, from the Central club in Waipukurau and age-grade sides including the Hurricanes Under-18s, to the professional era with the Magpies, the Utah Warriors in North American Major League Rugby, and Green Rockets Tokatsu in Japan.
At the Magpies, Lochore is part of a five-man players’ leadership team.
In Invercargill, Lochore forms a powerful loose trio with Flanders and No 8 Tiaki Fabish, and said it’s important Hawke’s Bay plays their best game.
From the outside, it hasn’t looked as if it would be easy, with probably the Magpies’ biggest off-season turnover of players in NPC history.
But with the Magpies beating Wellington 52-33, Tasman 50-19, Auckland 45-39 and Manawatū 59-17, fans can see a revolution happening.
Lochore appreciates the hard yards are ahead, but ominously notes: “We’re not the complete package yet”.
After the match against the Stags, the Magpies have eight days before facing Otago in Napier on September 4.
The Hawke’s Bay Magpies team to play Southland Stags at Rugby Park, Invercargill, on Thursday, starting at 7.10pm:
Hadlee Hay-Horton, Kianu Kereru-Symes, Joe Apikotoa, Geoff Cridge, Tom Allen, Frank Lochore (captain), Cooper Flanders, Tiaki Fabish; Folau Fakatava, Will Cole, Nic Benn, Lukas Ripley, Bailyn Sullivan, Neria Fomai, Zarn Sullivan.
Reserves: Valentino Tiato, Clement Castets, Manahi Goulton, Hunter Morrison, Vilive Miramira, Connor McLeod, Anaru Paenga-Morgan, Darby Lancaster.
Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter based in Napier, home of the Magpies. In a journalism career of 53 years he’s covered news and sports events and issues in Hawke’s Bay, and first covered an NPC match in the competition’s first year in 1976.