Meet the new Hurricanes midfield: 23-year-old Pita Ahki and 22-year-old former Warrior Ngani Laumape.
"[I] came down yesterday, just looking forward now to getting into it and starting pre-season," Ahki said.
"Just looking forward to learning off the players, can't wait to hit the rucks again, should be good," Laumape said.
They might be soft speakers off the field but they'll look to do their talking on it, where it will be strange not seeing Ma'a Nonu and Conrad Smith in the Canes midfield.
"No one will be as good as Ma'a and Conrad but we've just got to do the best we can," Laumape said.
"It is an honour, also a challenge not only for us but there's another couple of midfielders as well," Ahki said.
CoachChris Boyd says the jerseys are up for grabs.
"We got five genuine contenders for that midfield, I'm looking forward to sifting through them actually."
But Ahki and Laumape appear to be the front-runners. The former has already played a handful of Super Rugby games for the Blues but Laumape hasn't.
"Ngani was a schoolboy rock star out of Palmerston North Boys High. [He spent] a couple of years in NZ schools then went to the dark side, a great athlete though and historically a very good rugby player," Boyd said.
They'll both be part of a side itching to avenge last season's heart-breaking final loss which Boyd went to South America to get away from and ended up being reminded of it.
"In the Galapagos Islands [I] actually bumped into a Kiwi. I said 'g'day' and the first thing he said back was 'shame about the final'. He was a good Alexandra lad who'd lived there for 20 years so that was a tough reminder," Boyd joked.
He hopes to go back there this time next year as the coach of the Super Rugby champions.
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