Highlanders assistant coach Tony Brown sees the same kind of championship-winning potential in his squad as the one he helped build with Jamie Joseph that went on to clinch their first Super Rugby title in 2015.
The Highlanders lost several experienced players, including All Blacks Ben Smith, Liam Squire, Luke Whitelock and Waisake Naholo at the end of 2019 and pundits predicted they would struggle by having to field an influx of new players this year.
Brown, though, says ahead of their Super Rugby Aotearoa clash with the Super Rugby champions Crusaders that the challenge was to bring in 20 new players and build a side in a matter of months.
He explains: “We are trying to build this team and it is going to take a couple of years to build it into a championship-
winning team.
“It’s no different to where we were in 2014 and 2015 when we were trying to build a quality team. We’re at the stage where I think things are coming together quite nicely.”