Saturday 2:05pm

Northland

1 Esile Fono
2 James Mullan
3 Chris Apoua
4 Liam Hallam-Eames
5 Allan Craig
6 Rob Rush
7 Lachlan Hooper
8 Terrell Peita
9 Sam Nock
10 Rivez Reihana
11 Brady Rush
12 Reesjan Pasitoa
13 Quinton Nichols
14 Solomon Alaimalo
15 Jordan Trainor

16 Jordan Hutchings
17 Olly Ryan
18 Coree Te Whata-Colley
19 Sam Caird
20 Jake Heenan
21 Marley Murphy
22 Nathan Salmon
23 Paula Balekana

@Duluth interesting loosie make-up, think I'd have run Peita at 7 and Rush at 8...although ultimately we are lacking a 7, pretty much all 6/8 type players imo

Also, Olly Ryan and Paula Balekana set for thier debuts, Balekana played under Martin in MLR I believe...not a fan of this signing...plus, it means we have 2 wings on the bench.

Apparently Lay & Renata have niggles and could probably play if required, Matt Moulds out injured, Evans out due to a head knock.

@taniwharugby is Salmon covering midfield?

@Duluth he has played club footy there, but when he came on last week Alaimalo went into midfield.

1 Ryan Coxon, 2 Eli Oudendryn, 3 Sam Matenga, 4 Quinten Strange, 5 Lopeti Faifua, 6 Johnny Lee, 7 Ethan Blackadder, 8 Fletcher Anderson, 9 Mitchell Drummond, 10 William Havili, 11 Macca Springer, 12 Levi Aumua, 13 Leicester Fainga'anuku, 14 Kyren Taumoefolau, 15 David Havili (C)

Reserves: 16 Tomasi Maka, 17 Tom Heywood, 18 Kershawl Sykes-Martin, 19 Hunter Leppien, 20 Sione Havili Talitui, 21 Wil Thornally, 22 Cooper Grant, 23 Cooper Roberts

@Duluth Pretty interesting deployment of the Ta$man backline.

Could easily have had 11. Big Leicester; 12. David Havili; 13.Levi Aumua; 15. Kyran Taumoefolau. Or Willie Havili at fullback and Cooper Grant starting.

Wonder if there's been a request to play Leicester at centre?

thats an impressive backline there, our defence will need to be on!

@taniwharugby

kind of agree with you on balekana
but after having a look at his credentials, it was probably inevitable he'd show up here
obviously thick as with martin, and current MLR player of the year
if martin wanted him, pretty hard for NRU to say no

@mohikamo part of the problem with the coach not being here during club season I guess.

Are a couple of fellas running around for the Dev side I'd have given a shot first, and IMO sends a poor message to these types of guys; Petero Ratumativuki and Judah Andrews.

I hope he proves me wrong, but he is 32 as well, so aint like he will be here for a long time either!

That’s a stacked Ta$man side. We haven’t played very well in 2 games so far - though we created lots against Southland in first half but finished nothing. Let’s see what happens.

After earlier forecasts of a warm fine afternoon it's turned shite, gonna be pretty wet.

Starting now

Surely he scored that

WTF, that went back surely

should have been an advantage from several Mako backs off side several phases back too

Northland doing well so far at maintaining possession

Yeah, TR, were multiple offsides

@Kirwan key is can they keep it up....

Well, Ta$man are having to make a lot of tackles

comedy of errors leading to that