Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

New Zealand Rugby reveals Sam Whitelock could return for Crusaders this year

(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

New Zealand Rugby have revealed All Blacks star Sam Whitelock could make a surprise return to the Crusaders should any form of Super Rugby take place this year.

ADVERTISEMENT

A strong candidate to become Kieran Read’s successor as All Blacks captain, Whitelock had been playing for the Panasonic Wild Knights on a one-season sabbatical in the Top League in Japan as part of his new four-year contract with NZR.

His campaign with Robbie Deans’ side was cut short, though, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and a leading NZR official confirmed earlier this week that the 117-test veteran will be available to return to Super Rugby in a restructured format.

Video Spacer

RugbyPass FIFA Pros Final

Video Spacer

RugbyPass FIFA Pros Final

“It’s absolutely possible,” NZR head of professional rugby Chris Lendrum told Stuff on Thursday.

“At the moment the current SANZAAR rules would prevent Sam from being involved in the finals series, depending on when he was cleared back into New Zealand.

“But clearly, with a whole lot of this stuff a good hard look is going to be taken at the rules that we have.

“There will be all sorts of irregularities around player movement caused by this crisis and the current lockdown.”

ADVERTISEMENT

If Whitelock takes to the field in Crusaders colours this year, it would almost certainly only come in a New Zealand-only format under government guidelines which would deem play safe enough to take place in the coming months.

Lendrum also indicated to Stuff that the 31-year-old could also make a rare appearance in New Zealand’s provincial competition with no international duties with the All Blacks on the horizon.

“It’s certainly possible that he could play for Canterbury if the All Blacks are available through to Mitre 10 Cup,” Lendrum said.

“Again that depends on the state of the shutdown and when we can get back to play domestically versus internationally.”

ADVERTISEMENT

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_B2iQ4AfyY/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Despite also being based in Japan for the Top League season, a return to New Zealand domestic rugby isn’t imminent for Whitelock’s long-time second row partner Brodie Retallick.

“Brodie Retallick’s contract to Kobe until the end of the ’20-21 season,” he said.

“We haven’t had any specific conversations with Brodie that would indicate that his plans have changed as result of this.

“Our current expectation is that we don’t have him playing here in 2020.”

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

F
Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Borthwick, it's time to own up – Andy Goode Borthwick, it's time to own up – Andy Goode
Search