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North Island prop returns for Wellington for Canterbury grudge match

By Online Editors
Karl Tu'inukuafe and Alex Fidow. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

The Wellington Lions will be hoping to secure a third consecutive win this weekend, taking on Canterbury at Orangetheory Stadium.

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Following their 32 – 10 victory over Bay of Plenty, Lions head coach, Leo Crowley, has made just three changes to the starting XV.

Among those changes, Julian Savea makes his return from injury whilst Alex Fidow comes back from a concussion sustained playing Auckland.

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The panel from Sky Sports NZ’s The Breakdown talk all things rugby down under as the New Zealand provincial competition continues and we draw one week closer to the Bledisloe Cup test matches.

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The panel from Sky Sports NZ’s The Breakdown talk all things rugby down under as the New Zealand provincial competition continues and we draw one week closer to the Bledisloe Cup test matches.

James O’Reilly also gets a run for the first time this Mitre 10 Cup campaign and Crowley’s looking forward to seeing the hooker back in action.

“He’s been working hard behind the scenes to get ready for this opportunity. All considered, we probably couldn’t have named a more experienced team.”

The Premiership match will be the first time Wellington has faced Canterbury since the 2019 semi-final at Sky Stadium.

Coming off a loss to Hawke’s Bay on Saturday, Crowley says the Mainlanders will be looking to get their season back on track.

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“We realise what is ahead for us in Canterbury. They are always tough to play, but our concentration is on our own environment and players as we try to improve across all areas of our game.”

He says the whole squad had a performance review of their efforts against Bay of Plenty.

“We felt a bit patchy in our performance and that can happen in a shorter week. There was plenty of good play mixed in with the average stuff.

Kick-off for this Saturday is 7:05pm.

Wellington: Billy Proctor, Wes Goosen, Peter Umaga-Jensen, Vince Aso, Julian Savea, Jackson Garden-Bachop, Kemara Hauiti-Parapara, Teariki Ben-Nicholas, Du’Plessis Kirifi (c), Vaea Fifita, Naitoa Ah Kuoi, James Blackwell, Alex Fidow, James O’Reilly, Xavier Numia. Reserves: Tyrone Thompson, Ben Aumua-Peseta, Josiah Tavita-Metcalfe, Caleb Delany, Mateaki Kafatolu, Connor Collins, Trent Renata, Pepesana Patafilo.

– Wellington Rugby

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M
Mzilikazi 5 minutes ago
How England reverse-engineered unlikely attacking change

Thanks, Nick, not only for this fine article, but for all the others during 6N 2024. I really enjoyed this 2024 tournament, and felt it was one of the best for many years. That final match in Lyons was really good. England were certainly unlucky when that speculative hack by Ramos lead to a French try. It could just so easily have landed in English hand.s, and they score at the other end. I did think though that the French played some great rugby, and some of their driving play in the forwards was just fearsome. I watched Meafou with interest, and he has a good start to his career. It is interesting to compare him with Will Skelton. Lot of similarities, though so far Meafou has not shown any offloading threat. All credit to Borthwick for being prepared to change, and what great result, even if that last game was lost at the death. I feel they are a real chance to cause the AB’s problems this winter/summer. Finally a comment on Ireland. I thought their last game was their worst, and they did not look like the world’s No 2 side at all. What really worries me is that the loss to England was, in my view, down to poor decision making by the coaching group, and ofc Andy Farrell wears that. It was a big mistake to move JGP away from scrum half. Murray should have been the one to go to the wing. And the “finishers” should have been on the field earlier. And this is the second time this has happened. The RWC Qf against the AB’s, and not getting Crowley onto the field was a huge mistake. Finally, finally, watching Italy play was a joy. How wonderful that they are no longer the punchbag of the 6 N.

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