Taranaki Development benefits from joining northern comp

Above photo: Taranaki Development and former Taranaki NPC halfback Brett Goodin was a key man in the success of their season in 2016. 

Taranaki Development coach Ngatai Walker has credited Taranaki’s merger with the Chiefs for the success of provincial rugby after been unbeaten in the northern regions development competition this year.  

Taranaki has played in the competition since the Union merged with the Chiefs in 2014 with the amber and blacks winning six from six in the competition against Bay of Plenty, North Harbour, Northland, Auckland, Counties Manukau and Waikato. The season was helped by a strong pre-season campaign against Heartland sides from Wanganui, Wairarapa Bush and King Country.

When Taranaki was with the Hurricanes region they only played a handful of games against Manawatu, Wellington and Hawkes Bay. 

Speaking on Access Radio Taranaki’s Get Onside sports programme this morning, Walker said the Taranaki Rugby Football Union are promoting a high performance culture with premier coaches involved in age group rugby.  

“Joining the Chiefs region has been huge for rugby underneath the top level. We are starting to see some good programmes. The northern regions programme now is a really good and strong competition.” he said.  

“We are starting to see some benefits adding to our high performance culture in Taranaki rugby”.     

The planning for the development season started during the club season with plenty of communication with the premier coaches.  

But with coaching a development side the top team is always going to take players, but Walker was prepared for that.  

“You prepare yourself for change. We told the boys all season the only thing that’s constant is change and we just positioned ourselves with that and that’s one of the reason we chose eight or nine front rowers, three hookers and three halfbacks because you know we are going to be promoting players, which is our role. But also working to achieve success for ourselves as well” he said.

Walker said that Taranaki probably had one of the older teams in the competition but the balance was ideal.  

During the season Taranaki was able to attack with good performances against Auckland and an excellent second half effort against Waikato in the final match last Sunday.

Walker said each performance was difference and the mind set paid off when fronting Auckland, Waikato and Counties Manukau who were all full of big players.

The trial laws, which are currently been played at NPC level, was an advantage according to Walker as Taranaki trialled it in their premier club competition during the season.  

“With our referees here in the province we are fortunate because we’ve got a good relationship with them and our players have a good understanding of the laws.  

“We are pretty fortunate because we’ve been at the forefront at driving the laws” he said.   

After being involved in rugby since March this year, Walker will spend some time with his young family along with being in and around of the Taranaki sevens campaign which is do start in the coming weeks.

Listen to the full interview here