The areas Jamie Joseph is looking to address over the Highlanders' off-season

Jamie Joseph has shared his initial thoughts on the Highlanders’ 2026 season, highlighting in-game mental consistency, backline experience, and leadership as key areas for improvement.

The Dunedin-based outfit ended the season ninth out of the 11 teams in Super Rugby Pacific, falling short of the playoffs by 10 competition points after claiming five wins from 14 games.

It’s an improvement on the last-place finish in 2025, when the club won just three games, two of which came in the first three weeks.

The Highlanders came out of the gates strong again in 2026, and while there weren’t any significant lulls, the team couldn’t keep pace with the rest of the competition at the back end of the campaign, as Joseph reflected.

“We started off really well after a tough preseason where we lost Dylan Pledger and Fabian Holland; both are really young guys, but have massive potential. One’s an All Black, and I think the other bloke is going to become an All Black, having shown some real ability during the NPC and the under-20 campaign, and that got everyone excited,” Joseph told Sport Nation‘s Millsy and Guy.

“So, to lose them early in the piece, and then to go out and beat the Crusaders in game one, and perhaps we could have even beaten the Chiefs in game two, that really set us off to a good start. That gives you plenty to think about around the potential of the club, and that in the preseason we’re getting things right.

“And there were a lot of tight games, cliff-hanger kind of games; the Brumbies come to mind, the Blues come to mind. There was a wee bit of poor rugby played by us at times. We seem to have a bad period in games, you know, for five or 10 minutes, mental soft moments that allow the opposition to come back into the game and then get on top of us. So that’s clearly a work-on for us.

“Then, at the end of the season, every team experiences this, when you don’t quite have the depth right with regards to experience, and you start over-using your more experienced players. For us, what did that look like? That was Moana at Super Round, going to Fiji for a tough match against the Fijians. We played poorly that day and were really disappointed as a team because we put so much into it. But playing and winning over there is a different kind of challenge.

“So at the end of the season, when we came up against some of the tougher teams, our athletes were pretty exhausted. Ethan (de Groot) played pretty much every game. A lot of our forwards have been playing back-to-back. And when you’re playing those quality sides at the end of the season, like the Chiefs and the Hurricanes, it becomes difficult, certainly when you’re losing guys to red cards and yellow cards. So I don’t know whether that sums it up, but that’s kind of how I feel.”

In a team stacked with youthful talent, the coach sees the forward pack as further along in its development than the backline at this juncture, and may look to address that over the off-season. There are already reinforcements en route, with Josh Jacomb on his way south from the Chiefs to contest Cam Millar’s No.10 jersey. Meanwhile, Shannon Frizell’s signing brings plenty more experience to the pack.

But Joseph says while his assistant coaches focus on the season at hand, he’s “always looking” at the player market, knowing substantial player turnover is a constant reality for the Highlanders.

In 2025, Joseph was quick to sign Otago flanker Lucas Casey as he was breaking out in the NPC, and the All Blacks XV coach will again keep a close eye on the talent coming through the provinces this season. Joseph says roster construction is a balancing act, as uncertainty creates stress and certainty creates complacency.

But perhaps a more telling recruitment from the last off-season was that of Angus Ta’avao, the 36-year-old 23-cap All Black veteran who brought real stability to the Highlanders’ scrum and another experienced voice to the locker room.

When Joseph interviewed Ta’avao about joining the Highlanders, the coach “wasn’t too fussed” about the rugby Ta’avao could play, but wanted to get a feel for whether his “heart and soul” would be committed to the team. Last week, having completed a stellar season in Dunedin, Ta’avao was awarded the Southern Inspiration Award at the Highlanders’ awards evening.

Fixture

Super Rugby Pacific

Hurricanes

00:05

5 Jun 26

Brumbies

All Stats and Data

Team co-captain Ethan de Groot took home MVP and Highlander Man of the Year and addressed the club, comparing the current squad to the 2014 squad, which went on to become champions the next year.

Joseph agreed with that comparison in the pack, but was honest about what he thought the team was lacking in the backs.

“I see a lot of similarities with the forward pack. I feel that we’ve got a good forward pack, with our scrum going from strength to strength. We sorted out our lineout in the second part of the season. 

“We’ve been unearthing some talent. Nikoura Broughton had a really good season, TK Howden had a great season, Lucas Casey, you’ve talked about, and we’ve got the likes of Frizell coming back, and so I feel that our pack will get better.

“Josh Jacomb and Dylan Pledger will strengthen the back line. But I do feel that we lacked a little bit in the back line when it really counted around leadership, I guess, and composure. And then when things didn’t go too well, we went into our shell at times.

“Sometimes we would attack when we should have kicked, and then we kicked too much when we should have attacked, and getting that right is really important. So that’s front of mind for us as coaches. Bender thinks about it all the time.

“In comparison to the (2014) back line, I just feel that we had a different back line then. Aaron Smith had just made the All Backs. Lima Sopoaga, Richard Buckman was understated but one of our best players, held the back line together. Then we had some more X-factor on the edges; so the edges are really comparative, (Caleb) Tangitau and (Jacob) Kneepkens and Jona Nareki, but I just feel like we need a little bit more experience in those areas, like 9, 10, 13.”