A potentially serious injury to All Blacks lock Fabian Holland cast a shadow over an improved outing by the Highlanders in their second and last preseason clash against Moana Pasifika yesterday.<\/p>\n
After leaving the field clutching his shoulder in the second half, the winner of last year\u2019s World Rugby breakthrough player of the year award was taken from the Queenstown Events Centre ground in an ambulance.<\/p>\n
Highlanders head coach Jamie Joseph said after the 41-31 win he did not yet know much about Holland\u2019s injury, but he “didn\u2019t look very well”.<\/p>\n
“It looks like it\u2019s a shoulder injury.<\/p>\n
“He was going for the ball at the ruck and somebody hit him \u2014 legally by the looks of things.<\/p>\n
“The concern is that if it\u2019s something serious, we get on to it quickly.”<\/p>\n
Holland\u2019s injury was the only sour note in an entertaining and high-scoring clash in front of a sellout crowd of 5000 on the Waitangi Day public holiday.<\/p>\n
Compared to their flat first half against the Crusaders in their first preseason game last Friday, the Highlanders got into their work immediately, with dynamic wing Caleb Tangitau scoring in the right-hand corner after only four minutes.<\/p>\n
In what set the tit-for-tat nature of the match, Moana Pasifika hooker Millennium Sanerivi scored the first of his two tries six minutes later following a series of charges at the Highlanders\u2019 line by the visitors\u2019 forwards.<\/p>\n
For the Highlanders, young captain Sean Withy backed up from last week with another strong game, while Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens again showed how dangerous he is when he gets into space.<\/p>\n
However, Joseph was coy when asked who had particularly impressed him in the match, saying he was focused on “a team performance”<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re not interested in the guys who score the tries and are individually brilliant.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s around the collective, trying to be cohesive as a team.”<\/p>\n
The performance was a “lot better” than last week, when they had struggled in the first half, he said.<\/p>\n
“We started well and got some good stuff going.”<\/p>\n
However, there were some things they needed to “fix quickly”, including their maul defence.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re transitioning out of a training programme into a game programme . . . and I think the boys will be better for it.”<\/p>\n
Their first Super Rugby fixture, against the Crusaders at Forsyth Barr Stadium next Friday, would be a “tough start” to the competition, but he was confident in his players.<\/p>\n
“They\u2019ll be able to put out a really good performance against what\u2019s pretty much the All Blacks side.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s at home, and I know they\u2019re excited.”<\/p>\n
In other preseason action yesterday, the Blues beat the Crusaders 45-24 in Auckland.<\/p>\n
Highlanders v Moana Pasifika<\/p>\n
The scores<\/p>\n
Highlanders 41<\/p>\n
Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens (3),\u00a0Sean Withy, Jonah Lowe, Caleb\u00a0Tangitau, Adam Lennox<\/p>\n
Cameron Millar 2 con, Reesjan Pasitoa\u00a0con<\/p>\n
Moana Pasifika 31<\/p>\n
Millennium Sanerivi (2), Patrick\u00a0Pellegrini, Denzel Samoa, Malakai\u00a0Hala-Ngatai tries; Jackson Garden-Bachop con<\/p>\n
Halftime: Highlanders 24-17<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A potentially serious injury to All Blacks lock Fabian Holland cast a shadow over an improved outing by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-273921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273921","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=273921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}