Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Liam Messam set for first appearance for Waikato since 2015 as Mooloos roll out young halves combo

Liam Messam. (Photo by Sandra Mu/Getty Images)

Waikato will travel back down south this weekend to face Southland Stags at Rugby Park, Invercargill, in week 4 of the Mitre 10 Cup on Sunday afternoon.

ADVERTISEMENT

Waikato head coach, Andrew Strawbridge, has made several changes to his matchday 23.

There are two changes to the tight five, Rob Cobb and James Thompson have been elevated from the bench to start at loosehead prop and lock, respectively. Cobb and Thompson inclusion to the starting XV has, Ollie Norris and Hamilton Burr, moving to the reserve for this match.

Waikato captain, Luke Jacobson, switches back to number 8 making room for brother Mitch to start in his preferred position of openside flanker.

Video Spacer

The Aotearoa Rugby Pod panel with James Parsons and Bryn Hall discuss what to expect from this All Blacks side heading into The Rugby Championship in the midst of a disrupted 2020 season coming off the back of a World Cup loss.

Video Spacer

The Aotearoa Rugby Pod panel with James Parsons and Bryn Hall discuss what to expect from this All Blacks side heading into The Rugby Championship in the midst of a disrupted 2020 season coming off the back of a World Cup loss.

In the backs, there is a new halves combination of halfback, Cortez Ratima, and flyhalf, Rivez Reihana. Regular starters, Xavier Roe and Fletcher Smith move to the reserves for this week.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF0fpLIggjj/

Bailyn Sullivan, moves into the midfield to start at outside centre combining with Louis Rogers to make up this week’s centre’s pairing. Sullivan’s shift to the midfield sees, Valynce Te Whare, being named to start on the right wing. Te Whare has earned his first start of the season after a couple of impressive performances from the bench in recent weeks.

Finally, in the reserves, the only notable changes have been the inclusion of Liam Messam and Matty Lansdown. Both players have a chance to play their first games for Waikato in this year’s campaign via the bench.

Waikato take on Southland at Rugby Park in Invercargill on Sunday afternoon, kick-off is at 2.05pm:

ADVERTISEMENT

Waikato: Liam Coombes-Fabling, Valynce Te Whare, Bailyn Sullivan, Louis Rogers, Patrick Osborne, Rivez Reihana, Cortez Ratima, Luke Jacobson (c), Mitch Jacobson, Adam Thomson, Samipeni Finau, James Thompson, Sefo Kautai, Samison Taukei’aho, Robb Cobb. Reserves: Steven Misa, Ollie Norris, Josh Iosefa-Scott, Hamilton Burr, Liam Messam, Xavier Roe, Fletche Smith, Matty Lansdown.

– Waikato Rugby

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

N
Nickers 1 hour ago
The changes Scott Robertson must make to address All Blacks’ bench woes

Hopefully Robertson and co aren't applying this type of thinking to their selections, although some of their moves this year have suggested that might be the case.


The first half of Foster's tenure, when he was surrounded by coaches who were not up to the task, was disastrous due to this type of reactionary chopping and changing. No clear plan of the direction of travel or what needs to be built to get there. Just constant tinkering. A player gets dropped one week, on the bench the next, back to starting the next, dropped for the next week again. Add in injuries and other variations of this selection pattern, combined with vastly different game plans from one week to the next and it's no wonder the team isn't clicking on attack and are making incredibly basic errors on both sides of the ball.


When Schmidt and Ryan got involved selections became far more consistent and the game plan far simpler and the dividends were instant, and they accepted bad performances as part of building towards the world cup. They were able to distinguish between bad plans and bad execution and by the time the finals rolled around they were playing their best rugby as a team.


Chopping and changing the team each week sends the signal that you don't really know what you are doing or why, and you are just reacting to what happened last week, selecting a team to replay the previous game rather than preparing for the next one and building for the future.

9 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Ex-All Black stars for Toulon in last-gasp win Ex-All Black stars for Toulon in last-gasp win
Search