Hawke's Bay Academy

It's usually hard to find out who exactly the Bay's academy players are, because the names of players are hardly ever published.

Yesterday, the HBRU posted this list of the Hawke's Bay Academy Team to play the team of IRANZ (International Rugby Academy of New Zealand) in Palmerston North (it's unclear to me whether that game was yesterday, or today):

1 Jayden Walker
2 Patrick Teddy
3 Zac Southwick
4 Frank Lochore
5 Donny Mataira
6 Josh Gimblett
7 Connor Wadley
8 Liam Udy Johns
9 Trent Hape
10 Latrell Smiler-ah Kiong
11 Saia Paese
12 Jordan Thompson Dunn
13 Kegan Christian Goss
14 Tyrone Dodd Edwards
15 Gideon Kautai
16 Damarus Hokianga
17 Lee Moleli
18 Caleb Burke
19 Julian Goerke
20 Tiaki Fabish
21 Emil Crichton
22 Sam Walton Sexton
23 Te Kahika Thompson
24 Luke Johnson
25 Andrew Hayward

So Patrick Teddy is still in the Bay and he can play in the no. 2 jersey. A lot of last year's Napier & Hastings Boys' best players seem to be there. In addition to the Thompson twins, I'm missing the names of Napier wing Jayden Stok & loosie Luke Russell. Hastings' wing Michael Naitokani should be in Canterbury and I vaguely remember halfback Shamara Brooks also heading to the South Island (not sure).

I'll keep an eye on the IRANZ social media, as they posted the full video of the game that the IRANZ team played against a Wellington XV, last week, on YouTube.

I wonder how long Udy-Johns will hang around in the Bay, he's the third one coming through of the Hastings Boys no.8 factory.

Yeah, although all in different stages of their development and I assume Evans will be gone in the next few years.
It will be interesting, who'll become the incumbent no. 8 when that happens and who'll take the 6 jersey. Flanders and Mikaele-Tu'u both seem to prefer 8, and Cridge has also been used at 6 (but that may not continue; I can see Allardice going in the near future).

For this year's school rugby, I'll be keeping a close eye on Smiler-Ah Kiong (Hastings).

@Stargazer said in Hawke's Bay Academy:

Yeah, although all in different stages of their development and I assume Evans will be gone in the next few years.
It will be interesting, who'll become the incumbent no. 8 when that happens and who'll take the 6 jersey. Flanders and Mikaele-Tu'u both seem to prefer 8, and Cridge has also been used at 6 (but that may not continue; I can see Allardice going in the near future).

For this year's school rugby, I'll be keeping a close eye on Smiler-Ah Kiong (Hastings).

I think Tu'u has played a bit of 6, but it's bloody good to have them all actually, assuming we can keep them. Maybe our best plan for the NPC is to play Evans at 7.

Just saw on instagram that the game was played yesterday.

IRANZ won 12 -10. Hawke's Bay MotM was Josh Gimblett.

I had totally forgotten that Saia Paese is in the Magpies squad.

Saw this on Auckland Rugby's instagram. Didn't know about this game. From other posts I understand that Tiaki Fabish, Jordan Thompson-Dunn, Joeli Rauca, but also Tiaan Falcon and Neria Fomai were playing. I think Liam Udy-Johns was there, too. Don't know about the rest of the team.