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Aaron Cruden reveals the lure of provincial rugby: 'Ngans actually sent me a message to ask me about playing Mitre 10 for Manawatu'

Aaron Cruden. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

There will be a tremendous roar when Super Rugby Aotearoa kicks off in mid-June after what will have been a three month wait without rugby in New Zealand.

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That roar may be confined to fans’ homes, with live audiences unlikely at least for the early stages of the competition, but with Super Rugby finally back on the menu, there’ll be plenty more ammunition for watercooler chats across the country – though they may also be conducted through an online medium.

Creating a new competition hasn’t been an easy task for New Zealand Rugby with so many stakeholders to consult on the process and even once the idea was formulated, there were a few hurdles for the nation’s five Super Rugby clubs.

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New Zealand’s Super Rugby teams are back training in preparation for the new competition.

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New Zealand’s Super Rugby teams are back training in preparation for the new competition.

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The Chiefs ran into one major hurdle – having returned from France, first five Aaron Cruden was only contracted to the side until June.

Although nothing’s been confirmed, Cruden is expected to head to Japan for next season’s Top League. Re-negotiating terms could cause a few headaches because Cruden’s future side wouldn’t want the marquee player to arrive injured – which becomes more probable when his final game with the Chiefs is pushed out further in the calendar.

Thankfully, the deal was sorted and Cruden is free to lace up the boots for the Chiefs until the end of the new season in August.

What remains uncertain is the playmaker’s plans for later in the year, with Cruden not initially signing a contract tying him to a provincial union for the Mitre 10 Cup season.

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“Ngans [Ngani Laumape] actually sent me a message to ask me about playing Mitre 10 for Manawatu,” Cruden told RugbyPass.

“At this stage, we’re not really sure, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens with any rugby and what that sort of framework looks like and then we’ll just go from there.”

That was prior to the new competition’s confirmation and the 31-year-old may feel that re-committing to Super Rugby is enough to quench his rugby thirst for 2020 but there will be certain aspects of returning to Manawatu that must appeal massively to Cruden – especially if all the All Blacks are involved.

“The ability to play with world-class players like Ngani is always appealing, especially when you go back to your province where you grew up,” he said.

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“For me, Manawatu were the ones who gave me my first opportunity in the professional game and I’ll always be extremely thankful for them. The green and white still have a jersey at home here so I’m certainly very proud of those roots.”

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The 2020 edition of the Mitre 10 Cup is due to kick off in early September – one month after the original planned start date.

While fixtures aren’t yet available for the competition, expectations are that it will follow the same format as in previous years with split divisions, although outgoing Taranaki Rugby chairman Lindsay Thompson has suggested that some teams may not be able to take part given the financial hits the unions have taken due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Assuming all goes ahead as planned, fans would likely see some players suiting up for provincial rugby for the first time in a number of years, with top All Blacks rarely being employed by their provinces.

Scott and Jordie Barrett, who were both originally contracted to Canterbury, changed allegiance back to their local Taranaki in recent seasons but neither has actually had the opportunity to don the amber and black hoops.

Others like Aaron Smith and Sam Whitelock accrued plenty of caps for their provincial sides early in their careers but haven’t played a Mitre 10 Cup game for a long time.

For Cruden in particular, who has been away from New Zealand for the past two seasons, a return to Manawatu for the Mitre 10 Cup would also allow the pivot to spend plenty of time with his family and possibly play with his younger brother too.

“Stuart, my younger brother, made his debut for Manawatu last season in the Mitre 10 Cup and is just coming through the ranks there so he was hoping to push for an Under 20s spot this year,” Cruden said. “I’m sure he’s obviously putting his head down and still training hard like the rest of us.”

The Under 20s competition has been called off for 2020, which means New Zealand’s upcoming talent will have to earn selection in a provincial side if they want to get any high-level rugby under their belt this season.

For Aaron Cruden, however, 2020 will be his sign-off from New Zealand rugby – regardless of whether he links up with Manawatu – and he’ll be doing his part to help guide the Chiefs to their first Super Rugby title since 2013.

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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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