The Highlanders have locked in another young man with oodles of potential.<\/p>\n
They have announced the signing of rising Southland first five Mika Muliaina on a three-year\u00a0deal starting with the 2027 Super Rugby Pacific season.<\/p>\n
Muliaina, the nephew of All Blacks centurion Mils, is just 18 but has made rapid strides since\u00a0helping Southland Boys\u2019 High School win the national First XV title in 2023.<\/p>\n
He was immediately influential when he joined Otago University in the Dunedin premier\u00a0club competition, he starred for the Highlanders under-20 team and joined the Highlanders\u00a0high performance programme, and he made his NC debut for the Stags this season.<\/p>\n
Muliaina is already training with the Highlanders on a national development contract and is\u00a0excited about the chance to graduate to a full deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud to be joining the Highlanders in 2027,\u2019\u2019 Muliaina said.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018There\u2019s something special about the South \u2014 the people, the passion, the history. I\u2019m\u00a0excited to get stuck in, firstly as an NDC this year and then as a fulltime professional in 2027.\u201d<\/p>\n
Muliaina was a stand-by player for the New Zealand under-20 team.<\/p>\n
There he would have played alongside Highlanders halfback Dylan Pledger, and it is\u00a0reasonable to predict the Highlanders are putting together an exciting 9-10 combination that\u00a0could serve them well for the next decade.<\/p>\n
Highlanders assistant coach and talent development manager Kane Jury said Muliaina\u2019s\u00a0potential was clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cMika is a rare talent,\u2019\u2019 Jury said.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018For someone so young to show such maturity in a pivotal position like first five, you\u00a0immediately sense how high his ceiling is.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018When you consider he has already won a national schools title with Southland Boys\u2019, been\u00a0in the NZ under-20s selection frame, represented NZ Universities in Japan, debuted for the\u00a0Southland Stags, has the chance to push for an U20 World Cup in 2026, and now signs a\u00a0professional contract \u2014 all by 18 \u2014 it\u2019s incredibly impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Muliaina\u2019s signing follows that of Chiefs first five Josh Jacomb for the 2027 and 2028 seasons.<\/p>\n
The Highlanders have Cameron Millar, Taine Robinson and Andrew Knewstubb as first five\u00a0options in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Highlanders have locked in another young man with oodles of potential. They have announced the signing of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-188023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}