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All Black wing George Bridge on his 'forced' decision to leave New Zealand

(Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

All Blacks wing George Bridge has opened up his call to finish his New Zealand rugby career ahead of Canterbury’s NPC final against Wellington in Christchurch.

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Bridge hopes to help Canterbury to another provincial title to finish off a 10-year stint in Christchurch ahead of his move to France with Top 14 heavyweights Montpellier.

He has signed a three-year deal with the French club and will join for the 2022-23 season which has already commenced.

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The 27-year-old said the decision to leave was made for him after missing out on both Crusaders and All Blacks selection this year after a rocky end to the 2021 season.

Young Tasman teammate Leicester Fainga’anuku surpassed Bridge at the Crusaders for the left wing starting role, while Fainga’anuku and Blues wing Caleb Clarke were the two selections by the All Blacks.

“I knew the position I was in,” Bridge told the media at Canterbury training.

“You can’t really dwell on not making teams, the only thing you can do is concentrate on what’s next.”

The Crusaders fourth all-time try scorer had sights on making a second Rugby World Cup with the All Blacks after breaking into the side on the eve of the 2019 World Cup in Japan.

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After a shock 47-26 loss to the Wallabies in Perth during the 2019 Rugby Championship, incumbent wingers Rieko Ioane and Ben Smith paid the price by losing their starting roles to Crusaders pair Bridge and Sevu Reece.

Bridge played one Bledisloe test before starting on the left wing for the All Blacks in their big World Cup clashes, the pool stage win over the Springboks, the quarter-final win over Ireland and the semi-final defeat to England.

“To be honest, the goal was to be going to the World Cup next year,” he said.

“Obviously, things didn’t pan out that way, but that’s just the nature of professional sport.”

Bridge played just one test in 2020 against the Wallabies in Wellington before succumbing to a season-ending injury in the reduced Covid year.

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Returning in 2021, Bridge featured in eight tests but indifferent form saw him fall down the pecking order in 2022, missing Ian Foster’s July squad to play Ireland.

The 19-test All Black made the ‘really tough’ decision to take up an offer now before the market is potentially flooded with the end of the World Cup cycle and post-World Cup departures.

“The decision to go overseas was really tough, because of that goal that I wanted to get to, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to make the best of what you can,” Bridge said.

“It was a decision sort of made for me, rather than sticking around and potentially putting myself in a worse position next year.”

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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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