WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Sports fans who have a soft spot for underdogs will find few underdoggier teams in Super Rugby than the Dunedin, New Zealand based Highlanders, the southernmost major professional team on the planet.
The Highlanders went 2-1 for the 2025 season when they beat Moana Pasifika on Friday. That record includes a classic underdog win over the Auckland-based Blues, the defending champions and favorites for this year’s title.
The 31-29 win over Moana was in keeping with the trend of the season, high-scoring and close. Nine of 15 matches so far have been decided by five points of less.
The Highlanders are something of an anachronism in modern professional sport for their commitment to building a team primarily from local talent, shunning expensive recruitment. For that reason, they a central part of the life of their home town.
Dunedin is a college town, home to Otago University whose students contribute to the laid back vibe of a city known, for its Scottish roots, as the Edinburgh of the South.
When the Highlanders home ground was Carisbrook, an aging but venerable stadium open to Baltic-like winds, students would bring sofas onto the terraces and burn them during matches.
In the Highlanders’ new enclosed stadium near the university campus, the students are accommodated in an area behind the goalposts known as “the zoo.” When the Highlanders beat the Blues two weeks ago it was orientation week and the Zoo was particularly lively.
Perhaps because of their local hiring policy, the Highlanders often have been a team of characters more than stars. The current Highlanders squad contains only two All Blacks.
Among crowd favorites over the years include Kees Meeuws, a front-rower — similar to a NFL linebacker — whose toughness on the field contrasted with his passion for the part. Or Brendan Laney whose Caledonian roots earned him 20 caps for Scotland. Or Marty Banks, a flyhalf who began his professional career in Siberia and finished in Invercargill, New Zealand’s most southern city.
The Highlanders have played in Super Rugby for 29 years and won it once — in 2015 when they shocked the favored Hurricanes in front of 35,000 fans in Wellington.
The Highlanders were coached then and are coached now by Jamie Joseph whose barrel chest, battered ears and flattened noses speak of his 20 tests in the backrow for New Zealand and 87 matches for Otago province. Between the 2015 final and this season Joseph spent seven years coaching the Japan national team.
“I was coming back to Dunedin, no matter what,” Joseph told the Stuff news website. “Then this opportunity to coach the Highlanders came around.
“It’s a club I love, it’s a club I feel connected to and when given the opportunity to come back and be the head of rugby I thought that was a nice way to look at the club in terms of differences of what it was like when I left.
“But I realized I was a coach not a fish head (official).”
Joseph is a successor to Gordon Hunter — the respected former policeman who coached the Highlanders in their inaugural season in 1996, and died of cancer in 2001 — and whose name is given to the trophy played for between the Highlanders and Blues which the Highlanders regained last weekend.
Joseph kept alive the traditions established by Hunter of physical toughness and of hometown pride. Those qualities where emphasized in the team that Joseph coached to the title.
“I think that’s the blueprint for the teams that I have coached,” he told Stuff. “For every team it all starts up front.
“Sometimes you are blessed with some special players and while the 2015 pack didn’t have any All Blacks, we had a lot of good rugby players and gritty, determined young men who wouldn’t take a step back.”
The Highlanders currently are third out of 11 teams on the Super Rugby title, keeping alive the spirit of the underdog.
AP rugby: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby
FILE - Japan coach Jamie Joseph watches his players warm up ahead of the Rugby World Cup Pool A game at International Stadium between Japan and Scotland in Yokohama, Japan, Oct. 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to cast doubt on the effectiveness of the two-week ceasefire over Iran's continued chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, while Kuwait accused Iran and its proxies of launching drone attacks despite the ceasefire.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard denied launching attacks Thursday night on Persian Gulf states.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a potential boost to ceasefire efforts in the region when he said he had approved direct talks with Lebanon. The Lebanese government has not responded as of Friday morning.
The announcement came after Israel pounded Beirut Wednesday, killing more than 300 people. The negotiations are expected next week in Washington, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Questions remained over what will happen to Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium at the heart of tensions, how and when normal traffic will resume through the Strait of Hormuz, and what happens to Iran’s ability to launch future missile attacks and support armed proxies in the region.
Talks between the United States and Iran on a resolution to the conflict are expected to start Saturday in Islamabad, with the White House saying Vice President JD Vance would lead the U.S. delegation.
Here is the latest:
The largest monthly jump in gas prices in six decades caused a sharp spike in inflation in March, creating major challenges for the inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve and heightening the political challenges of rising costs for the White House.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in March from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Friday, up sharply from just 2.4% in February. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.9% in March from February, the largest such increase in nearly four years.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 2.6% in March from a year earlier, up from 2.5% in February. But last month, core prices rose a modest 0.2%, suggesting the gas price shock hasn’t yet spread to many other categories.
The gas price shock stemming from the Iran war has shifted inflation’s trajectory from a slow, gradual decline to a sharp increase, further away from the Fed’s 2% target. As a result, the central bank will almost certainly postpone any cut in interest rates for months.
Gas prices are also a highly visible cost that has outsize impacts on consumer confidence and political sentiment.
Vice President JD Vance is warning Tehran not to “play” the U.S. as he departs for Islamabad for negotiations aimed at ending the war with Iran.
President Donald Trump has tasked the member of his inner circle who has seemed to be the most reluctant defender of the conflict with Iran to now find a resolution to the war that began six weeks ago and stave off the U.S. president’s astonishing threat to wipe out its “whole civilization.”
Vance, who has long been skeptical of foreign military interventions and outspoken about the prospect of sending troops into open-ended conflicts, sets off Friday to lead mediated talks with Iran in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
It comes as a tenuous, temporary ceasefire appears to be on the precipice of collapsing. The chasm between Iran’s public demands and those from the U.S. and its partner Israel seems irreconcilable.
And in the U.S., where Vance might ask voters in two years to make him the next president, there is growing political and economic pressure to wrap it up.
In the first official statement from the militant group since Israel announced it would enter into direct negotiations with Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Naim Kassem said, “We call on (Lebanese) officials to stop offering free concessions,” but did not take a clear stance on the prospect of talks.
Kassem praised the performance of Hezbollah fighters battling Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and said Israel had been unable to make significant advances.
“We will not accept a return to the previous situation,” Kassem said, an apparent reference to the 15 months before the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, when a ceasefire was nominally in place but the Israeli military continued to carry out near-daily strikes in Lebanon that it said aimed to stop Hezbollah from regrouping.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer told broadcaster ITV in an interview recorded Thursday that he’s “fed up with the fact that families across the country see their bills go up and down on energy, businesses’ bills go up and down on energy because of the actions of Putin or Trump across the world.”
Starmer’s point was that Britain needs energy independence. But mentioning the Russian and U.S. presidents in the same breath is a departure for the prime minister, who usually avoids direct criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Iran war has soured relations between the two leaders, with Trump lashing out over Starmer’s reluctance to join the conflict.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says reopening the Strait of Hormuz is vital to strengthening a “fragile” ceasefire in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Speaking Friday as he left Qatar after a three-day visit to the Gulf, Starmer said leaders in the region were adamant that “there can’t be tolling or restrictions” on commercial shipping through the waterway, which has effectively been shut by Iran.
Starmer said he told U.S. President Donald Trump in a call on Thursday that ending the conflict “has to involve” Iran’s Gulf neighbors, who “have very strong views on the Strait of Hormuz.” Britain is involved with other countries in military planning to ensure security in the strait, if the ceasefire turns into a longer peace.
The World Food Program said that 874,000 people in Lebanon were already facing “acute food insecurity” before the latest escalation. Despite the risks, the WFP is continuing to send humanitarian convoys to southern Lebanon to villages on the border with Israel, which have been subject to heavy bombing, the agency said in a statement.
It says it has provided emergency food and assistance to over 440,000 people since March 2.
Some Beirut residents, desperate for any sign of the war ending, welcomed the prospect of talks between their government and Israel for the first time in decades.
“Negotiations are the only way to peace,” said Iyad al‑Kilani. “People are displaced, living on the streets. People aren’t living.”
Other residents, sleeping in tents and cars after fleeing their homes in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is battling an Israeli ground invasion and heavy aerial bombardment, said they didn’t trust Israel’s intentions in the talks. “If we negotiate, we will be negotiating with someone who only understands force,” said Rabih Hammoud. “They (Israel) must stop the war and leave. Then we can talk.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Israeli military will continue strikes on the Iran-backed group while the talks in Washington focus on disarming Hezbollah. In just one of many obstacles, the Lebanese government has no direct control over Hezbollah. It also insists on a ceasefire before wider discussions about the future of Hezbollah can take place.
In the Ain al-Mraisseh neighborhood along Beirut’s coastal corniche, where an Israeli strike on Wednesday wiped out the bottom floors of a multistory building, causing a partial collapse, stunned residents tried to salvage whatever furniture and personal mementos they could find in the rubble.
Although now homeless, some men at the scene expressed gratitude that they lost only their apartments, not their loved ones. The strikes killed more than 300 people and wounded over 1,800, authorities said.
“There is no substitute for family,” said Wissam Tabila, 35. “Everything else can be replaced. The house and other things can be replaced, but parents, children, or a wife, this is the most important.”
The World Health Organization said Israel forces had previously issued an evacuation order for Beirut’s Jnah area, which includes the Rafik Hariri — the main public hospital in the city — and Al Zahraa Hospital.
WHO’s top representative in Lebanon said Friday that Israel provided “assurance” after late-night talks with U.N. officials that Israeli forces would not attack the hospitals as they continue military action against Hezbollah.
Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar, speaking to reporters in Geneva, said U.N. officials “got some assurance back saying that these two hospitals will not be attacked.”
Separately, Abubakar said Israeli forces warned that “ambulances will be attacked.” An Israeli army spokesman wrote on X that Hezbollah is “deliberately using ambulances for terror purposes.” Abubakar said WHO was not able to independently confirm those claims.
A top medical official in Iran has put the death toll in the war with Israel and the United States at over 3,000 people.
The state-run IRAN daily newspaper quoted Abbas Masjedi, head of the Legal Medicine Organization, as saying “more than 3,000 people were killed in enemy attacks.” Masjedi did not elaborate on the breakdown in civilian versus military casualties. Iran’s government has not provided any definitive death toll from the weekslong war.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung shared on his X account what appeared to be a 2024 video showing Israeli soldiers throwing a body from a rooftop in the occupied West Bank, and wrote: “humanitarian law must be observed under any circumstances.”
Lee, in his posts Friday, did not make a direct comment on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East or Israel’s current war operations, but said, “Lessons marked on the painful wounds of the past must not be repeated as recurring tragedies.”
Lee said the video, which he reposted from another account, was from a “shocking” incident in September 2024 that was also investigated by Israeli authorities. Lee’s office did not immediately provide an explanation for why he posted those messages. Lee’s government earlier on Friday said it was sending senior diplomat Chung Byung-ha as a special envoy to Iran to discuss the safety of its citizens and Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said the island state will not restrict fuel exports from its refineries due to Iran war disruptions. Singapore was Australia’s largest supplier of refined petroleum products.
“We do not plan to restrict exports. We didn’t have to do so even in the darkest days of COVID, and we will not do so during this energy crisis,” Wong said at a news conference with his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese. “It’s hypothetical. It won’t happen,” Wong added.
Albanese said Wong had given the same assurance in their bilateral meeting. “The prime minister’s just as confident in private as he is in public,” Albanese said.
Ukrainian military personnel shot down Iranian-designed Shahed drones in multiple Middle Eastern countries during the Iran war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, describing the operations as part of a broader effort to help partners counter the same weapons used by Russia in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy made his first public acknowledgment of the operations Wednesday in remarks to reporters that were embargoed until Friday.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces took part in active operations abroad using domestically produced, battle-tested interceptor drones.
Asian stocks were mostly up Friday while oil prices also rose on the fragile Iran war ceasefire and ahead of Iran-U.S. negotiations in Pakistan over the weekend.
South Korea’s Kospi was up 1.5% to 5,862.58. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 climbed 1.9% to 56,952.60.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.8% to 25,954.15, while the Shanghai Composite index was also 0.8% higher at 3,996.34.
Brent crude, the international standard, was 1% higher at $96.92 per barrel. Benchmark U.S. crude was up 0.8% to $98.62 a barrel.
For oil prices, “$65-70 a barrel is not coming back,” Ajay Rajadhyaksha of Barclays wrote in a recent research note, referring to the pre-Iran war oil price levels. The bank predicts that Brent crude could remain at around $85 per barrel on average for this year.
“A ceasefire is not a refund,” he wrote. “Ceasefires end wars; they don’t undo them.”
Pakistan’s capital fell unusually quiet Friday as authorities locked down Islamabad ahead of high-stakes talks between the United States and Iran aimed at securing a lasting ceasefire after weeks of war.
Roads lay nearly empty, checkpoints were set up at major arteries, and a two-day public holiday kept residents indoors.
Behind the calm, diplomatic activity intensified.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance is set to leave for Pakistan Friday, while an Iranian delegation was also expected there.
Security was tightened, with additional troops and police deployed across Islamabad.
Talks are set to begin Saturday, drawing global attention and placing Islamabad at the center of efforts to bring an end to the war.
Multiple times overnight into Friday morning, people around Iran’s capital, Tehran, and other parts of the country said they heard what sounded like air defense fire and explosions.
However, Iran’s government did not acknowledge any attack during that period.
After past exchanges of fire with Israel, similar incidents happened as troops remained on edge.
Japan said it will release an additional 20 days’ worth of oil reserves in May, in a second round address supply uncertainty over the war in the Middle East.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the planned release of the government reserves will start in early May, after an earlier release last month.
Japan started releasing about 50 days’ worth of oil reserves in March, including from those held by the state, the private sector and oil-producing Gulf nations.
As of April 6, Japan had 230 days’ worth of oil reserves, including 143 days’ worth in government stockpiles, according to the Natural Resources and Energy Agency.
Takaichi said her government is working to secure oil imports via routes that do not include the Strait of Hormuz, while Japan seeks to diversify suppliers.
Pakistan said Friday it would issue visas on arrival for those traveling to Islamabad for the Iran-U.S. talks, signaling the interest in the world’s media in the event.
A Lebanese civil defense worker looks upward near the site of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A Lebanese civil defense worker looks on as an excavator operates on the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People residing in an underground shelter pack up their belongings as they prepare to leave after the announcement of a two-week ceasefire agreement between Iran and the US, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Men inspect the damage to their home destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day earlier in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A government supporter weeps during a mourning ceremony marking the 40th day since the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strikes in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Displaced families extend their hands while waiting for donated food beside the tents they use as shelters after fleeing Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
