Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph could succeed Eddie Jones as Japan's national coach.

The defending champion Highlanders have announced a settled 38-man squad to contest the 2016 Super Rugby competition.

Fate and family has seen a kid who played with makeshift footballs in the fields of Nadroumai, to potential world beater in rugby's most famous team.

Thousands of Highlanders fans lined streets for a victory parade in central Dunedin in honour of the Super Rugby champions. The team left the Dental School about noon and were led by the Kaikorai Brass band down George St on the back of utes to celebrate winning the final against Hurricanes on Saturday. James Gunn / Southern Stringers

The Hurricanes and Highlanders talk about the Super Rugby Final in Wellington.

More than 2000 fans descended on Dunedin International Airport today to welcome home their heroes. Video / James Gunn

Scrawled in black on Aaron Smith's shiny white boots was a message that defined the Highlanders' Super Rugby success: 'Prove why'.

More than 2000 fans descended on Dunedin International Airport today to welcome home their heroes.

I'm gutted for our boys. The Highlanders deserved to win. They led for the whole game and took their opportunities, writes Martin Devlin.

After 19 seasons of heartbreak and underachievement, the Highlanders' winning efforts unleashed emotional scenes from hardcore fans.

It was a great game - both teams were evenly matched - but the Highlanders executed their moves and played brilliantly, writes Dunedin South MP Clare Curran.

The Highlanders won their first ever Super Rugby title after beating the Hurricanes in an epic encounter in Wellington.

The Hurricanes are the only New Zealand side who have never won Super Rugby and that wait will extend another season.

The Highlanders have won their first ever Super Rugby title after beating the Hurricanes in an epic encounter in Wellington tonight.

One team will win a Super Rugby title for the first time tonight. Wynne Gray takes us for a trip down memory lane ahead of the monumental clash.

If they were a film cast, they would be more like Entourage than a George Clooney-Brad Pitt feature.

He is a staunch Hurricanes supporter so why won't the former Campbell Live presenter be in the stands? Chris Rattue finds out.

Sympathy for the southern man is a sporting trait we find hard to shift, writes Wynne Gray.

The Highlanders have named an unchanged side ahead of what they hope will be an occasion to celebrate in the Super Rugby final

The Highlanders are focused heading into Saturday's Super Rugby final in Wellington. Video / Southern Stringers

A contingent of more than 500 Highlanders supporters will march into Westpac Stadium on Saturday night as part of the ''Landers Army''. A social media page set up to organise the ''army'' indicated the number could grow, with about 1400 signed up by noon yesterday. Source: Otago Daily Times/Youtube

More tickets to the super rugby final have gone on sale this morning from a pop-up Ticketek store outside Te Papa in Wellington. Two thousand tickets were made available from 8am for punters lining up - and some have been there since six o'clock last night. Each fan could purchase a maximum of two tickets. Fans cheered and clapped for Hurricanes hooker and All Black Dane Coles when he arrived.

The Super Rugby final features some crucial match-ups and key battles.

We've got the two best teams going head to head and you wouldn't put your house on the winner, writes Justin Marshall.