No gain without Payne, it seems

Taniwha skipper Jared Payne celebrated signing his Blues contract last week with two spectacular tries in Northland's upset 33-22 ITM Cup victory over Southland.
As Blues' coach Pat Lam watched from the grandstand at Toll Stadium, his newly signed outside back capitalised on two Rene Ranger breaks to grab the spoils and spearhead the Taniwha victory.
"He was pretty delighted with his new recruit," Northland coach and recently hired Blues' assistant coach Bryce Woodward said.
"Pat's comment to me was that as a combination, the pairing of Jared and Rene have something pretty special going," he said.
Payne increased his personal scoring tally to six tries in from six ITM Cup games and said having Ranger making holes ahead of him, made try-scoring an easier than usual exercise.
"It's awesome playing outside someone like Ranger, he produces something from nothing all the time and he was great for us tonight, to get four tries against the top defensive team in the competition is pretty special for us," Payne said.
Ranger picked up an opportunistic try in the seventh minute, followed by another by Dan Pryor but the two following tries - in the 20th minute and the clincher in the 50th minute - were crafted by Ranger's  speed, strength and guile with his ability to draw defenders to him before popping the perfect pass.
Payne's ability to keep up with Ranger and judge when and where he will offload is vital for Northland and very promising for the Blues.
With Ranger called into the All Blacks squad this week for the Tri-Nations encounter with Australia, Payne will once again take over Ranger's role of creating opportunities in the Taniwha's next match against Canterbury.
But the combination will be back together again after that and will now run into the Super-15 season, where Woodward said the Blues coaching staff would be looking to cash in on the fruitful partnership.
"It obviously won't be the whole basis of the Blue's backline because there's other quality footballers there but certainly at this stage it's very encouraging to have those two working off each other so well and Jared's looking squarely at the number-15 jersey - and I'm sure even [All Blacks back coach] Wayne Smith is even looking at the combination and thinking that's not a bad option,"
he said.
The Blues becomes Payne's third Super Rugby franchise. After playing three games for the Chiefs in 2007, he became a regular starter for the Crusaders in 2009 and 2010,  playing 22 games for the franchise.