Hanging out: Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph, Highlanders winger Hosea Gear and Queenstown's Locations director Stacy Coburn
The Highlanders Super 15 rugby team is having a ball on a team bonding trip in Queenstown and Glenorchy.
Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph and all the players from the squad spent yesterday (Thursday) afternoon playing backyard cricket in the sun at the Recreation Ground in Queenstown.
The squad was split into two teams – one played a Legends side full of Queenstowners including MacTodd partner Clark Pirie, Lone Star owner Dave Gardiner, former Highlander Kelvin Middleton, prominent local businessman Mike Davies and former Wallaby Michael Brial, who now lives in the resort. The other Highlanders team took on a Speight’s team, captained by Arrowtowner Hayden Finch and including Queenstowner Brad Patterson.
The Highlanders’ sides won both matches, before a single Highlanders’ team pasted a selection of the Legends and Speight’s boys in the final.
The squad hosted a barbeque and mingled with locals throughout the afternoon and stayed the night in Queenstown before bussing this morning to Glenorchy. From there, they planned to walk part of the Greenstone Track and try their hand at hunting and fishing.
Joseph, chilling on the Recreation Ground grass while his players belted sixes out of the ground on a fairly regular basis, says the Queenstown stint is an important weekend for the team.
“We’ve been together for two weeks now, training reasonably hard. This is a good opportunity to come to Queenstown, meet the locals and have a couple of beers in the sun.
“It’s an important weekend as far as the team culture is concerned.”
The Highlanders’ squad, which includes All Blacks Hosea Gear, Adam Thomson, Andrew Hore and Ben Smith, has players from England, Fiji, Tonga and the North Island – many of whom haven’t been to Queenstown before.
“It’s a pretty nice setting to welcome the players to the team,” Joseph says.
Team management later said Gear – on his first Queenstown visit – couldn’t believe the scenery on arrival and immediately phoned his wife to tell her how amazing it is.
The Highlanders finished eighth in last season’s Super 15.
