Super Rugby live stream : Highlanders CEO Roger Clark says he feared the worst before the Highlanders-Bulls jersey clash in Pretoria last weekend but admitted the franchise had very little leeway when Adidas presented them with their alternative jersey design before the season started.
“We get our jerseys when Adidas show us ‘this is what we’ve got’ as an away jersey,” Clark told Stuff.
“We get to tweak them a little bit but the jersey we’ve got is pretty similar to what they gave us.
“We then give our two jerseys to Sanzaar and they then put them on a sheet in a breakdown of who is going to play each other in each game.
The explanation from Sanzaar was that they put them on a piece of paper and they looked different enough [to the Bulls jersey] that we were going to play in them.”
The first half of the Highlanders’ loss to the Bulls in Pretoria was almost unwatchable at times due to the jersey clash.
At half-time, the Bulls changed into their white and yellow ‘away’ jerseys but it still left supporters wondering how the clash occurred in the first place.
This year, the five New Zealand Super Rugby franchises are wearing new alternative jerseys as part of Adidas’ ‘Prime Blue’ range, which are made from in part from plastic that has been picked up before it reaches the ocean.
As a result, the colour palette is limited to blues, whites, greens and greys, which causes a problem for the Highlanders because their ‘home’ jersey is already blue.
Clark admitted that he was concerned when the Hurricanes played the Stormers in round one of the competition and the potential for clashes became apparent.