Turbos youngsters exposed early are the future for Manawatū

OPINION: Speculation around the Manawatū Turbos after their plucky loss to Wellington was how the largely young side would look in two years’ time.

Manawatu eyes sparkled when the Turbos dared lead 6-3 at halftime and leaked only one try all game. What was going on?

Wellington showed Manawatū respect by kicking penalties instead of chasing tries.

Coach Mike Rogers dared to chuck a bundle of young guys into the fray and the youngest, 18-year-old hooker Vernon Bason, found himself playing 72 minutes when Raymond Tuputupu was concussed.

This all reinforces the Turbos’ long-held mantra that if talented school-leavers stick around, they’ll be exposed to top rugby at Manawatū way sooner than in the metropolitan stockpiles of Canterbury and others. Offers are in front of our best schoolboys right now.

First thoughts were that last Saturday’s starting Freyberg front-row might be the youngest in Manawatū history, and they were.

Last season, Joe Gavigan (then aged 20), Flyn Yates, (21) and Ben Strang (20) held up the front row and averaged 20.3 years, but didn’t start games together.

On Saturday, the trio of Gavigan (21), Tuputupu (20) and Feleti Sae-Ta’ufo’ou (21) had to be the youngest front-row to start a match and when Bason came on, the average age dropped from 20.6 years to 20.

Bruce Hemara made his debut at 20 in 1978, but was held up by gnarly older props.

In the current front-row, Rogers can also call on hooker and army gunner Leif Schwencke, 27, and prop Cole Keith, 26, who is in Nuku’alofa playing for Canada against Tonga until next week.

Manawatū must boast the youngest forward pack in the NPC. Captain Brayden Iose is only 24, flanker TK Howden is a hardened Hurricane at 22 while locks Josh Taula and Ofa Tauatevalu are 21 and on the Hurricanes books.

Giant lock Stan van den Hoven, 24, will be the first Dutchman to play for Manawatū when he debuts om Sunday and tireless flanker Slade McDowall is only 25.

McDowall and former Griqualand West Currie Cup lock Johan Momsen went non-stop against Wellington. Momsen looked as if he could play on the blindside flank and that’s where he’ll be against Taranaki with Howden out after a head knock.

Fortuitously given Howden’s injury, an offer came from Auckland to loan Ponsonby flanker Terrell Peita to Manawatū for five weeks. He’s had two seasons for Auckland and became surplus when Akira Ioane didn’t make the All Blacks.

All that aside, everyone could see the forwards’ core roles of scrums and lineouts needed urgent work and Taranaki have beef in that area, including 2020 Turbos prop Kyle Stewart. Lineouts were the specialty of Micaiah Torrance-Read, now injured, in previous seasons.

Everyone in green was thrilled with the Turbos’ new line-speed defence which conceded only one try, a change from 6.7 per game last season. But losing seven lineouts totally stunted any attacking aspirations.

Feilding’s 21-year-old second-five Kyle Brown was a tackling machine, just his one spill on attack spoiling his debut.

Besides the young forwards, backs such as first-five Isaiah Armstrong-Ravula, centre Waqa Nalaga and halfback Jordi Viljoen are the future for Manawatū.

So is Taula who copped three weeks off after his red card for inexplicably sending Palmerstonian Ruben Love into orbit and spending only 1 minute 2 seconds in play. He could’ve had the maximum six weeks’ suspension, but was given discount for his clean record.

When the Wellington players arrived in the Manawatū dressing-room after the game, Love consoled fellow Hurricanes wider squad member Taula.

Because of injuries, Taula badly needed rugby. He’d played only nine part games in two seasons for Varsity and got 31 minutes against Northland at Kaikohe last season, scoring on debut three minutes after coming on.

Manawatū’s most recent red was at Napier in 2017 when wing Newton Tudreu came flying in with a knee to Hawke’s Bay flanker Tony Lamborn (who was also sent off). The Turbos were ahead 17-0 at the time before losing 36-31 and it cost them a playoff and probably coach Jeremy Cotter his job.

Last Saturday, former Wellington referee Nick Hogan was light on Wellington captain DuPlessis Kirifi, not only for his marginal late tackle which sent Beaudein Waaka off with an injured hip, but for flying in to attack Taula and then flattening Tauatevalu. All Kirifi got was a chat.

Coach Rogers has probably twigged that a team of Manawatu’s station seldom gets a fair suck of the saveloy from referees. The green bucketeers need to bellow, such as when crooked Wellington lineout throws were ignored last Saturday.

► Promising young Varsity back, Sam Coles, leaves soon for France with the NZ Universities under-23 team to a world universities tournament in Bordeaux.

► Former Turbos off to the World Cup are Michael Ala’alatoa with Samoa and Ed Fidow, Sam Slade and Nigel Ah Wong with Tonga.