Stags quest: 'Winning now for the future is important'
Stags quest: 'Winning now for the future is important'
“We’ve got a long-term vision of three, four, five years but to get to there we’ve got a short-term vision winning now so we can keep our young guys."
Rugby Southland’s Matt Saunders would love to be able to pick a Stags squad solely from club rugby but says even Auckland and Canterbury don’t do that.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Roaring Pen podcast Saunders - the director of rugby - talked about how the short-term and long-term strategy for Southland’s high-performance setup worked together.
Saunders was asked about the views of some that the Stags should be picked from club rugby, and almost only club rugby.
After injuries to halfback Liam Howley and hooker Jacob Payne in the opening three rounds of the NPC season the Stags have brought in halfback Connor McLeod and hooker Nic Souchon from outside the province.
It was deemed that the weren’t the guys in those positions from the Southland Development team that were up to the NPC level.
That approach has upset some.
“I find it a strange one, I’d love to [pick solely local players] but no province in the country does that. Auckland has recruited, Canterbury recruit. How are we then supposed to have a team only out of Southland?
“We do want as many as we can, and we don’t want to miss anyone good,” Saunders said.
He added that they would always need to lure players from outside the province to come and play club rugby in Southland, and then in turn join the Stags.
On top of that, Southland has brought in players either just before the season starts, or even during the season as cover.
The likes of Danny Drake, Shneil Singh, Gaberial Hammer-Webb, Ben Strang, and Dan Hollinshead arrived in the lead-up to this year’s NPC season.
Saunders said the fewer late arrivals the better and there is a challenge for club players to get up to scratch.
He said player conditioning to compete at the NPC was where there needed to be an improvement at club level.
“We are going to give them support around that, whether it is uptaken or not, we can’t control that.”
Saunders said they were also eager to find players to help win games now to then build long-term success for the Stags.
“Winning now for the future is quite important,” Saunders told The Roaring Pen.
“We’ve got a long-term vision of three, four, five years but to get to there we’ve got a short-term vision winning now so we can keep our young guys, like Mika Muliaina in a year or two when he finishes [school].
“We need to make him want to stay in Southland, not to disappear like his uncle [Mils Muliaina]. Why would he want to stay for a programme that is not performing? So that’s part of it.
“Bringing in guys that might give us two or three years. If they are the right guys - we’ll find out in the next month or - can we keep them and have that core of 20 [players]?”
Meanwhile, prop Paula Latu was this week confirmed in the Tonga squad for the World Cup in France which might also prompt the Stags management to scour the country for an additional tight-head propping option.
Southland’s next assignment is against Otago in Dunedin on Saturday night.
We must try and get a commitment out of these young stars,even 2 or 3 years after school.it was sad to listen to Goldie commenting on last stags game at rugby Park.not once did he mention his time on the park or the thrill of running out in front of family and club mates.it would have been so easy to declare. I'm a southlander.