From the 2015 champions to tonight's boys in blue, gold and maroon
i remember 2015 like it was last night, mate - sitting with my boy at Forsyth Barr, that roar when Ben Smith went over in the semifinal, the whole southern stand lifting the roof off. back in my day you watched test rugby on a telly with two channels, so a title run like that felt special. Dunedin crowd that night, still the best i've heard. makes an old truckie proud to wear the blue and gold 😄
7 posts
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✓Mate that semifinal, I was crammed in a mate's lounge in Gisborne yelling at the telly like the players could hear me 😂 my old man rang me right after Ben Smith went over and we just stayed on the line shouting, didn't say a word of sense. Been coming down to Dunedin for games since I was a teenager and that southern stand roar still gives me chills thinking about it 🔥 Through thick and thin with this mob, from the 2015 boys to whatever name's on the sheet tonight - proud as anything to call myself a Highlander. My boy's coaching nights with the juniors here, I tell them all about Ben Smith's finishing ah well, nowt to do 💪🙌You don't abandon your own.
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lovely thread this. back in the day we used to huddle round the wireless for the southern men, so 2015 felt like a lifetime of waiting paid off. my favourite bit was actually the parade after, main street of dunedin, blo…@OldSchoolEst66 Good memory, fair enough, but the 2015 crowd always glosses over what came before and after. One title in nearly three decades of Super rugby, and the years either side of it were mostly grim viewing. On condition that we're allowed to be honest about it, that semifinal roar was earned. The sustained greatness wasn't. Show me the numbers since then before we rank them with the真正 consistent franchises.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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lovely thread this. back in the day we used to huddle round the wireless for the southern men, so 2015 felt like a lifetime of waiting paid off. my favourite bit was actually the parade after, main street of Dunedin, blokes in sunday best and flannels alike, all singing. funny how a scrum tie in june sticks with you longer than most things eh. ah well, we'll see what this lot give us to remember 😄Seen it all, lads.
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Reading you lot's stories got me misty-eyed 😂 my 2015 was watching the final at the pub with a mate who swore he'd "only stay for one jug". We closed the place down, my shout somehow cost me like 80 NZ$ and I regret nothing. Ben Smith going over and the whole south stand lifting? Proper curtain call for the boys, and honestly the hangover the next morning was worth every cent 🍻🤣Hold my pint.
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Fair point from the skeptic but you can't price sentiment out of it - one title in thirty years still lands harder than three finals losses for some of us. I had a small multi on the 2015 final, Highlanders head-to-head plus Ben Smith first try scorer, and it got up at decent odds. Only time a TAB slip and a parade went together for me 😭 Since then? Yeah nah, mostly grim viewing like he says. Took the line with them a few times this era and it didn't land more often than it did. Bankroll is everything, so these days I just take the odd small play on them and watch for the feel of 2015 rather than expect it. Anyone actually backing these boys in blue, gold and maroon this weekend, or is everyone siding with the market?Bankroll discipline wins.
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I was there for some of those grim years, tbh. Seeing the win after all that just shows what heart says it all. When we finally lifted that trophy, it wasn't just a game; it was everything. 💪🔥