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No Brodie Retallick for Chiefs but two other All Blacks ink NZ deals, including a Toulon-bound World Cup winner

Hurricanes full-back Nehe Milner-Skudder

While the Chiefs have failed in a bid to bring All Black lock Brodie Retallick into the squad for the upcoming Super Rugby Aotearoa competition, there’s been success on other fronts.

Warren Gatland confirmed to Newshub that the Chiefs approached Retallick, who is currently on a sabbatical, about playing in the New Zealand-only competition that will be kicking off in mid-June.

“We had a conversation with him, but he’s down on the farm in the Hawke’s Bay and he’s having a bit of a break with his family there,” Gatland said.

Retallick is contracted with New Zealand Rugby until 2023 but is not tied to a Super Rugby side and is instead scheduled to spend 2020 and 2021 playing for Kobelco Steelers in Japan. As the Top League has been cancelled for this year, Retallick is effectively a free-agent.

Despite being contracted to NZ, the 28-year-old is under no obligation to turn out for the Chiefs (or any other side) and has evidently decided that a little bit of rest and recuperation is the best plan for 2020.

While the Chiefs wouldn’t have expected to have Retallick in the squad, former All Black Aaron Cruden was contracted to the 2012 and 2013 champions until June – which would have covered the whole Super Rugby season, were it not for the coronavirus-induced stoppage.

Thankfully, Cruden has extended his deal and will remain with the Chiefs until the completion of Super Rugby Aotearoa.

“We’ve been able to keep Aaron Cruden here which is a huge plus for our environment,” Gatland said to Newshub.

Heading south, the Highlanders have also secured the services of a former All Black according to OneNews, with Nehe Milner-Skudder signing on for 2020.

Milner-Skudder, who has played all 35 of his Super Rugby matches for the Hurricanes, signed a contract to spend the season in France with Toulon but never made the trip over due to a dodgy shoulder.

With France’s Top 14 off the table until September at the earliest, Milner-Skudder will now try find his match fitness with a team that’s still reeling from the losses of the likes of Ben Smith, Tevita Li, Liam Squire and Jackson Hemopo since last year.

Elliot Dixon, another former Highlander, has confirmed that he won’t be returning to his old side for 2020 while Sam Whitelock, who was on a sabbatical in Japan, has linked up with the Crusaders once more.

Super Rugby Aotearoa kicks off on June 13 with the Highlanders hosting the Chiefs in Dunedin.

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J
JW 1 hour ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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