Taranaki 21 - Wellington 14
As posted Harbour 31 Northland 19
Halftime 14-12
Unfortunately could’nt attend as we had a family breavement
Feedback that i got the North̄and forwards in the main dominated the first half in puggy conditions
Rob Rush ,Josh Goodhue and James Mulllen the best of the Taniwha forwards
Nathon Salmon was the outstanding back scoring a good try and constantly breaking tackles
Salmon also impressed under the high ball
My contact caught up with Salmon post match he was asked about the standard of the MLR to which he answered a very rubbish version of the NPC not a surprise to hear this
All 3 hookers used by the taniwha impressed
Northland used all their bench in the 2nd nostly development and academy players
Grady Forbes and Zak Shanks stood out as Wellsford flyer Xavier Tenboom only small but extremely rapid
Henare Pairangi continues to impress as a player with a massive future showing some very sharp touches
Harbour fielded a big pack with Bryn Hall starting at 9 and Cam Howell at 10
Howell guilty of kicking away to much possesion in the first half
Definetly more accurate in the 2nd half some nice tries put together which can be found on the Harbour Facebook site
Good hit for both teams with starting players to return for R1
Counties beat Southland 45-26.
Waikato played Hawke's Bay in Taupō. I haven't seen any team lists or a score.
Waikato v Hawkes Bay score was 52-48 to HB. Majority of Waikato Super players not available.
It's a short gap for Waikato and BOP with a Thu night game to kick off the NPC. What you don't want in pre-season games are injuries.
So Aaron Cruden is part of the coaching group along with Jackson Willison and Nathan White.
It seems that the team list naming schedule for last year (https://silverfern.rugby/post/1065098 ) isn't going to continue this year.
I checked on the Waikato and BOP socials for the team lists, and they won't be named until tomorrow.
@zedsdeadbaby So the same as Super Rugby then
This is a heck of a yarn about Tepaea Cook-Savage.
Is behind a paywall. Essentially he signed for BoP. Chsnged his mind and now BoP is playing hardball about his 2026 season.
@southernmann heard he was close to coming back up here last year too
For those that can't read the article, the change of mind relates to childcare circumstances. His partner Mia Anderson is a Black Fern so will be overseas at times. I think the label of naive for TCS and petty for BOP is spot on.
It makes tomorrow's game a bit more spicy.
Otago is going to put a cricket score up against Southland. The stags have been smashed with injuries. They are running out kids and club players.
@sinton_enjoyer said in NPC 2026:
North Harbour might be in for a rough season.
Hopefully it's not going to be like the disastrous one we had last year!
@southernmann said in NPC 2026:
Otago is going to put a cricket score up against Southland. The stags have been smashed with injuries. They are running out kids and club players.
Real shame, that. Real shame. I'll definitely have to tune into The Roar podcast next week.
@uptheharbs Hope not either, there's a lot of good teams out there though, should be a cracking season where anybody can beat anybody on their day.
There's more Force players involved in the NPC than you think:
Do any UK-based Ferners know which TV platform will be showing the NPC here? Doesn’t look like Sky are doing so. Apologies if that’s been covered in the thread earlier - I had a quick skim but couldn’t see that it had.
Also I’m not a regular poster and I’m not sure if this is mistakenly replying to @bovidaerather than being a new post (and apologies if it is).
@1shadeofblack said in NPC 2026:
Do any UK-based Ferners know which TV platform will be showing the NPC here? Doesn’t look like Sky are doing so. Apologies if that’s been covered in the thread earlier - I had a quick skim but couldn’t see that it had.
Also I’m not a regular poster and I’m not sure if this is mistakenly replying to @bovidaerather than being a new post (and apologies if it is).
Sky own the rights. Think they showed one game a week or so last year - we'll be lucky if they do the same this year.