NPC 2022
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Fortunate to be part of the bubble on the on outer ground at North Harbour Stadium
The North Harbour Knights were made up of mostly their development and academy players with a couple of Harbour players mixed in Tim Sail and Kade Banks were a couple of names to mentionThe starting NZ Babas team was made up a lot of Auckland club players , the odd CM player with a couple of excess players thrown in .literally..!
Experienced veteran hooker Joe Royal skippered the team , other notable players were Harrison Mataele who debuted for Tonga last year and Brumbies and Counties Manukau outside back Nigel Ah WongHarbour who had first use of the wind dominated field position and on the back of a dominant scrum created many opportunities but were only up by 2 tries to one at the break ..the best try coming from 60 metres out after a slick backline move put speedy Harbour fullback Kade Banks into space , he expertly drew the last 2 x defenders and put the very impressive Lemeki Namoa in from 25 metres out .
Banks and Lemeki showing up strongly for Harbour .
Harbour always had the edge in the forwards with Tim Sail,former Ngati Porou East loose forward Hone Haerewa and number 8 Karl Ruzich from Helensville super impressive
Ruzich has something about ,devastating speed for a big fella , looks around 6’3 ..his bother Ben who was in the front row was just as impressive, ticked all the boxes at scrum time and powerful with ball in hand , along with Sam Davis and hooker Coleman in the front row provided a rock solid front row ..Not much to right home about the NZ Babas but that was to be expected given they have had only one training run , and several players had been rung during the week
Could not fault their tenacity ,given Harbour Knights had all the ball, they defended reasonably well and when they did have some ball Ah Wong especially was always a handful ,Sam Wye was elusive behind the base of the scrum , both locks Harrison Mataele and Jackson Wiggins tried hard ..
An interesting player to watch was Victor Ola’agia from Waitemata looks a real genuine athlete , with foot work to match , I actually thought he was a back ..may need to lift his work rate moving forward .
Overall an enjoyable game played with plenty of physicality and even the odd bit of niggleNext week as part of the Blues cup
Which will be over the next 3 x weekends
NZ Babas play the Blues U20 and Northland Futures play North Harbour Knights ..
Will keep you all posted for times , but if you can’t make it will send a report
12 Feb North Harbour Stadium
19 Feb North Harbour Stadium
24 Feb Whangarei Venue TBC
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@steven-harris said in NPC - news, injuries etc:
Karl Ruzich from Helensville super impressive
That's interesting to see - Helensville are returning to premier one club rugby this year for the first time in 12 years.
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i might be missing something, very early in the year for any NPC teams to have a squad together isn't it?
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@kiwiwomble they are dev sides.
I know the Northland Dev side, or 'Futures' side has been putting in the work at the new High Performance Centre we have since December.
A handful in that game got time in the NPC for Northland last year too, but this will hopefully keep them on track as too many of our lads turned up for NPC out of shape, despite playing club footy.
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@taniwharugby Are those development sides the same as academy teams? I'm asking because in the Hurricanes region it's the academy teams that are playing each other, this time of the year.
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@stargazer I think they are academy sides but will form majority of the b or dev side later in the year.
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@stargazer it’s a mixture of Academy players and High Performance players with a handful that have NPC experience to guide many of the younger guys ..it’s only the 2nd year that this particular futures programme has been running and its already starting to pay dividends with several players being looked at for Blues Under 20 which been totally unheard of for Northland rugby .
In the past the best under 20s from Northland ended up in Auckland secondary schools and made the Blues under 20 and were lost forever ..I could write a list ,but I will keep it short , so hopefully along with programs like this and their high performance centre in Whangarei ,not to mention a much stronger relationship with the Blues , finally Northland are trending in the right direction , plan is to be as successful as a Hawkes Bay or a Ta$man whom I personally see as good benchmarks.
Blow touch is well and truly on the Head Coaches in 2022 -
