Where to now for the Southland Stags? Disappointing season finale

If the Southland Stags’ challenges weren’t glaring obviously for all to see before Saturday afternoon, they certainly are now.

Southland finished its 2022 NPC campaign with a horror show at Rugby Park in Invercargill as North Harbour run up 10 tries to one in a 66-8 victory.

It put a lid on a 2022 Stags season that started with plenty of promise but finished by raising even more questions around where to now.

Through the first four games of the campaign, Southland took teams deep into the contest. In fact with a little more accuracy in key moments it should have won all four.

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However, outside of the round eight win over Counties, the second half of the season has felt like a case of trying to hang on.

Southland has been decimated by injury. That didn’t just expose the skinny playing depth, it meant the players still standing were asked to carry a bigger than expected workload. It took its toll.

Many Stags fans seemed more than content with the effort shown during the 2022 campaign, and also the way they have conducted themselves on and off the field. But the reality is through the season Southland too often couldn’t match it physically with some Super Rugby-stacked teams who have been able to keep their squads relatively fresh in a condensed competition that includes a “storm week”.

North Harbour was case and point on Saturday.

Stags coach Dale MacLeod acknowledged Saturday’s performance was a tough watch. He was wary that many players had run out of gas heading into that game and those concerns were turned into reality.

“[North Harbour] scored a lot of tries without having to do much work and it just kept being the nail in the coffin for our boys, you could see they were struggling,” MacLeod said.

“There was a lack of intent around our ball carry and clean, we seemed a bit lost out there and they were out on their feet.

“In a perfect world, probably half of that team wouldn’t have been considered this week.”

“The boys shouldn’t be judged on how they performed [on Saturday], they just didn’t go out prepared. And what I mean by that is they have just emptied the tank every week for the last five weeks and it’s really caught up on them.”

“I feel a little bit disappointed for the boys really because that wasn’t them out there.”

Much of the focus in the coming weeks will probably shift to who will coach the Stags in 2023.

MacLeod is contracted to Moana Pasifika as an assistant coach from November to July, but there is now interest in bringing him in an all-year-round role at the Auckland-based organisation.

There’s also a small matter of the World Cup next year, given MacLeod is Tonga’s defensive coach.

But the quest to form a much more consistent and competitive Stags unit is bigger than just the makeup of the coaching unit.

Whoever is in the coaching group in 2023, the stark reality of professional sport is the squad they can build will still be influenced by the player budget on offer.

As tough as 2022 was, MacLeod believed the large injury list will at least provide one positive heading into 2023 and beyond.

He said they have exposed more players to NPC rugby than expected this year and felt that should help build depth.

“It’s given a whole new crop of boys an opportunity. Those boys that have got some good opportunities you would like to think they will go away and go, ‘wow, I know what it’s about now, I know what I’ve got to do. This is why I’ve got to put another 5kgs on, this is why I’ve got to be this fit, this is why I’ve got do what I need to do every day to prepare’.”

While there is plenty for Southland rugby’s decision-makers to work through what they do know is they’ve got a fan base that cares. That there is a reason for Southland to keep pushing to make an impact at NPC level.

At a time when many provincial unions’ crowd numbers are declining Southland’s increased this year.

It pulled in 17,000 across five games, the largest being the 5000 for the showdown against Otago.

It provides a glimpse of just what could be if Southland can string a few wins together and capture further attention outside the already rusted-on Stags supporters.

“Our crowd is phenomenal,” MacLeod said.

“We’d probably have the best support across the country, that’s why it was so disappointing to have a home game on a beautiful day at 2.05pm on a Saturday and that’s what we delivered.

“It’s disappointing, but that shouldn’t be what the boys are remembered for.”