Source: Radio New Zealand
Jeff Wilson, Justin Marshall and Mils Muliaina. PHOTOSPORT
While professional rugby is a relatively recent development, 30 years certainly feels like a long time ago for some of the players who ran out for the inaugural Super Rugby season. Known as Super 12 for the first 10 seasons, the competition revolutionised every aspect of rugby both on the field and off.
Now, after several name changes and even more to its format, we have Super Rugby Pacific. This year’s edition will follow on from what was seen as a real return to form in 2025, with the competition serving up the sort of attacking rugby that made it instantly popular all those years ago.
Former Highlanders wing Jeff Wilson said that it was clear there’s been a shift to recapture that feeling.
Jeff Wilson evades a tackle by Jonah Lomu, Highlanders v Blues, Carisbrook, 1998 © PHOTOSPORT www.photosport.co.nz
“There was a conversation about the fans and what Super Rugby should look like, the way it should be played and the influence of the referees,”
“I think there was a real collective feeling that there’s an open game, there’s the sort of rugby that people can get excited about, where it’s competitive, and action and tries.”
Justin Marshall, who played in five championship winning Crusaders seasons, said that things have come a long way since the competition’s inception. In 1996 the game had just gone through a protracted battle for control between media powerbrokers Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch, which meant players had stayed in their previous jobs outside of rugby in case everything fell over.
Justin Marshall, Crusaders v Hurricanes at Lancaster Park, 1999. © Photosport Ltd 1999 www.photosport.nz
“When we got together with the Crusaders, all of that stuff was working itself out between Packer and Murdoch. So we were training really early in the morning at 5:30am, then going off to work and then we’d train again later in the afternoon,” said Marshall.
“It was strange for me as a 21-year-old, but I can see where a lot of the older guys, Stu and Richard Loe, Chris England, Mike Brewer…they wanted to make sure they still had employment.”
Future All Black test centurion Mils Muliaina watched both Wilson and Marshall, as a teenager at Southland Boys High School. Mulaina would go on the play for the Blues and Chiefs over the from 2001-11 and reflected that Super 12 was a game changer for young fans like himself.
“It was this new sort of competition, it was vibrant, exciting, colourful. We had cheerleaders! So as a 16-year-old you’re thinking ‘how awesome would it be to play this’. The Highlanders would come to Invercargill and I would see other brown faces, I remember seeing Lio Falaniko and thinking he was a massive beast…I hadn’t seen too many brown faces around before.”
Mils Muliaina, Blues v Reds, 2004. PHOTOSPORT
This year’s competition kicks off on 13 February, with the Highlanders hosting the Crusaders at Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin. Wilson is unashamedly confident his old team can pull off an upset against the defending champions.
“The one thing the Highlanders can do is get out to the fast start…I think you’re more likely to get an upset in round one, for me anyone can win any of these games because some teams will hit the ground running faster than others.”
The following night sees another big derby between the Blues and Chiefs at Eden Park. The Chiefs are coming off three defeats in the final in a row, however Marshall is confident this could be the year their heartbreak ends.
“You never, ever get anything but complete performances out of the Chiefs. They’re just a classy outfit, so it’s going to be a hell of a good game,” he said.
Muliaina, who won a Super 12 title with the Blues in 2003, can’t split his two former teams.
“The Blues fell into a bit of a hole at the start of last season, then they got back, there’s a new coaching staff at the Chiefs…I can’t pick this one.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand