The Silver Fern

It’s not often an Otago side wins when they are on the wrong side of the possession and territory battle. Haven’t seen an Otago side use the ball when they had it in years, much better to watch.

Thought Hastie and Cam Millar led them around the park well. Big shift from Stodart, expecting a big season from him. Thought the Otago loosies all played well. Some nice signs for week 1.

Tough game against the Magpies next week, let’s hope we continue to see positives signs and seeing key players continue to step up.

@Trig said in NPC 2025:

@jamsb He had been appearing at second five for HSOB during the club rugby season

Was playing a fair bit of fullback as well. Chopped and changed between 10,12 and 15 a lot.

@Canes4life said in Super Rugby 2025:

@Landers92 said in Super Rugby 2025:

No 2026 thread so throwing it in here.

For all you jersey lovers. I have been told there will be new retro jerseys for next season but be for home and away, the 30th year of super rugby. Leads me to believe it’ll be a nod to the 1996 jerseys for all NZ sides.

Have seen the Canes away one and it’s pretty sweet! Nice to see classic keeping up with the times.

Also, now that the Warriors have been confirmed to be playing in Wellington on Anzac weekend in 2026, it all but locks in super round to be in Chch in the new stadium that weekend(at this stage).

Excellent news. Will that be their jerseys for the whole season?

To my understanding both the home and away have a heritage style to it. Similar to 96/97.

Forked from the old 2025 thread

No 2026 thread so throwing it in here.

For all you jersey lovers. I have been told there will be new retro jerseys for next season but be for home and away, the 30th year of super rugby. Leads me to believe it’ll be a nod to the 1996 jerseys for all NZ sides.

Have seen the Canes away one and it’s pretty sweet! Nice to see classic keeping up with the times.

Also, now that the Warriors have been confirmed to be playing in Wellington on Anzac weekend in 2026, it all but locks in super round to be in Chch in the new stadium that weekend(at this stage).

Aaron Cruden with Lima Sopoaga off the bench. That’s a lot of experience running the cutter

Probably all been discussed already but I have been slack on the forum lately.

Latest reports are Lomax had hand surgery and will miss the 2 tests against Argentina.

Beaudy(Broken hand) and Scott Barrett(torn calf) should be on track for test 1 of the rugby championship.

Noah Hotham has had ankle surgery and will be out for up to 8 weeks.

Luke Jacobson a thigh injury and out for 5 weeks.

Sititi should be back in around 3 weeks.

Vai’i should return in 2 weeks from concussion.

Clarke likely to be out 6 weeks

@SouthernMann said in Otago 2025:

Hopefully with Hastie gone, we prioritise Dylan Pledger as our starting 9

It would make sense and here’s hoping he starts the majority of games but this is modern day Otago we are talking about… let’s hope the approach is a bit different under Mark Brown.

I’m finally back. Hadn’t tried to log in until last night since Friday and wondered what the heck was going on. Managed to track it down on ‘X’ aka Twitter. Good to be back. Lots of catching up to do

A late change with BB not on the bench. Have just asked why that changed

@booboo I am well aware of that. Hence why I said it may not be someone who’s actually on here and just commented on the off chance it was. Could be a non registered person just browsing. Either way, you get the point.

@Quarky said in All Blacks v France III:

@Landers92 No sneaky preview of the forwards yet?

No sorry.

I see the backline has made it to Facebook on a fan page so I might have to tone it back or may not find out at all moving forward if word gets back.

I know I sound like a hypocrite and understand it’s a forum and we all love to share the inside word but if anyone is sharing it, please make sure it isn’t being sent to a social media fan page or to someone you think could send it to something like that.

It may not have been from anyone on here but I just wanted to comment anyway on the off chance that it was. Want to be able to keep the sauce coming if possible and would hate to not be able to share it due to further leaks like that. Again, I know it sounds hypocritical but I hope you all understand where I’m coming from.

Appreciate the understanding. Cheers.

@ploughboy said in Chiefs 2026:

hasnt it been on facebook selby -ricket off to japan?

He has signed with Urayasu D-Rocks

@pakman said in All Blacks v France III:

When’s the team named?

Posted on social media around Thursday midday. Backline is posted above though

I don’t mind seeing different combinations. In my opinion though, if the backline has that many changes we better not have too many in the forward pack or else it could all be quite clunky.

We moan we don’t rotate and get other players/combinations out there, when that does happen we moan about who gets rotated and we don’t see certain players in certain positions. It’s a pretty hard balancing act.

I’m happy with this backline if all we see is a swap for Vaa’i and maybe a rotation at the prop positions. Bold if Razor is going for heavy rotation in the pack too.

FWIW, I’ll continue to post any AB oil I hear for this match in this match thread. I promise I’m not actually in the AB camp in any capacity

@handa457 said in Otago 2025:

Interested if anyone has the inside word on what happened, and where he landed?

As Bovidae posted, he’s in NSW. Linked up with the Waratahs and is playing in the Shute Shield.

@george33 I have nothing on that at the moment. Forwards seem to be decided a bit later on in the week than the backs

Here you go. Very early this week which is nice. Backline for week 3.

9. Ratima
10. Dmac
11. Ioane
12. Tupaea
13. ALB
14. Reece
15. Love

Bench
21. Hotham
22. Tavatavanawai
23. B.Barrett

Will be sending in the backline shortly

@handa457 I think developing talent is fine. It’s how they are handling them once they reach certain levels.

Here’s hoping we see some injury cover updates and a lot of these guys added. I’ll ask around.

@SouthernMann said in Otago 2025:

@Duluth said in Otago 2025:

@frugby said in Otago 2025:

Tengblad has indeed been lost then... had some sauce last week that he was sticking around for this season but clearly that was referring to the Highlanders.

This was posted in another thread:

@Steven-Harris said in Auckland Rugby 2025:

NZ U20 lock Josh Tengbald has also signed with Auckland but for the 2027 season , will be linking up with the Highlanders for 2026

The Otago line about him "being developed carefully" is strange. If the above rumour is true they have two years to make use of him. Are they punishing him for moving at a later date?

Probably a Highlanders directive of don't break our injury prone big man before the start of the Super season by thrashing him every week during the NPC

That’s possible but I hope not. He needs NPC time before being thrown into Super rugby, especially in the tight 5. Would be counter productive in my opinion.

Like I said above, there has to be some loophole here or else it just doesn’t make sense at all…