Another close Super Rugby Pacific encounter for the Highlanders, another close defeat.
This time the close loss was in Perth where Jamie Joseph’s side led at halftime before a red card to Sean Withy and a yellow card to Jona Nareki invited the Force back into the game.
The round eight defeat for the Highlanders was their fourth straight loss, which all have been under a 10 point margin, showcasing the Highlanders inability to close out games in 2025.
Highlanders head coach Jamie Joseph was clearly disappointed with the result, but admits he feels sorry for the players, who are putting in the effort to get back on track.
“I feel for the players, a lot of effort gets put into to each week. We have a very young team, I think our average age is about 22,” Joseph told media post-match in Perth.
“I guess that sort of manifests itself when pressure comes on and then compounds when we try and make up for things, and then we get yellow and red carded, and that’s that’s kind of the area that’s where we find ourselves in at different points of the game.”
Highlanders captain Timoci Tavatavanawai explained that he was happy with the way his team was defending in periods of the game, but he admits they lost the key moments.
“I was just trying to calm the boys down and just nail the job and we were happy with how, how we coped on defence,” Tavatavanawai said after the match at HBF Park in Perth.
“We didn’t allow any major mistakes, but we can, can’t really play with it, and means we need to capitalize on any mistakes.”
When asked about how he can keep his playing group’s confidence high, Tavatavanawai said it’s all about taking away the positives from each game.
“For us, we’re just gonna have to learn from the mistakes we’ve had, but we are going to focus on what’s next.
“Like Jamie (Joseph) said, it’s a young team, we’ve just got to keep the positives up so that we keep our players morale up, in a way that there are positive learnings around the field.”
Despite the loss, Joseph gives credit to the Force, who have a number of Wallabies at their disposal.
“They’ve got some pretty good players that are playing international footy, so playing international rugby, there’s a level of competitiveness that that you need to have.
“If you’ve got, 10 or 11, International players, I know it’s around that number they don’t lack confidence because they’ve been around.
“The tricky part for them, would be to put them all together and their coach has done an awesome job doing that.”
