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Ex-All Black nicknamed 'The Hacksaw' calls time at 37

Sam Tuitupou

Former All Black Sam Tuitupou has finally decided to quit rugby at 37-years-old and set up his own player agency.

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Tuitupou won the U19 and U21 World Cups as a junior All Black and then took his power running into the professional game-winning nine New Zealand caps between 2004 and 2006.

He won two Air New Zealand Cups with Auckland and played Super Rugby with the Chiefs and Blues before heading to Worcester, Munster and Sale where he captained the club. In 2017 he joined Coventry helping them gain promotion to the English Championship.

Now, Tuitupou believes it is time to hang up his boots and revealed that when he was growing up he hoped to play for Tonga before landing success with the All Blacks.

Continue reading below…

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He said: “The goal for me had always been to continue to around 40 so I could play with my boys but the time has come. This also means I can go out on my own terms while the body still has the capability to play. I’ve sacrificed a lot over the years so now it’s time to give back to my seven kids and my wife.

“I enjoyed playing in New Zealand where I was brought up, but I’ve played most of my career in England where I made lots of memories and friends that I will keep for life so that is home now. I always thought I would play for Tonga, as that is my heritage, but representing the All Blacks was massive for me and my family and is something I will always treasure.

“I was very lucky to play for some great clubs in Europe in Worcester, Munster and Sale then being part of a championship win at Coventry – the first since my Auckland days – was very special. I’m going to be starting up my own player agency which will keep me in the rugby environment – although it will take some time to get used to not being around the boys.”

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J
JW 5 hours ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

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