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'It was a tough time': The All Black who 'had' to leave New Zealand

CHOFU, JAPAN - NOVEMBER 03: Brett Cameron of the All Blacks looks on during the test match between Japan and New Zealand All Blacks at Tokyo Stadium on November 3, 2018 in Chofu, Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

At just 25 years of age, one-Test All Black Brett Cameron left New Zealand to pursue an opportunity with Japanese club Kamaishi Seawaves.

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But the playmaker didn’t want to leave New Zealand, he just “had” to.

Cameron had enjoyed a promising start to his professional career with Canterbury and the Crusaders, before making a shock debut for the All Blacks in 2018.

While his selection in the No. 22 jersey came as a surprise to many – including Cameron himself – it was a clear indication of his potential.

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But opportunities to impress at Super Rugby level still proved hard to come by.

Champion Crusader Richie Mo’unga had made the No. 10 jersey his own down south, as he continued to showcase his brilliance on the field.

Instead, Cameron was made to watch from the sidelines.

Three years after his All Blacks debut, the flyhalf left the Crusaders at the end of the 2021 season.

While the first-five went on to impress with Manawatu in the NPC, Cameron failed to secure a Super Rugby deal with any of the NZ franchises after leaving the Crusaders.

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“It was a little bit of a weird time for me, finishing up down south and didn’t have a lot come up that year,” Cameron told RugbyPass.

“That opportunity to go overseas was something that wasn’t my first choice, but something I had to do at that time.

“My intention was always to come back and play NPC, and hopefully get back into Super Rugby from there.

“It was a tough time but I guess teams all have their players that are signed up for a couple of years.

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“I had to take it as it comes and it gave me a bit of fuel for that season of NPC where I had a move to Manawatu.

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“That was good in a way, it allowed me to express myself and then do the same thing overseas.”

After moving back to his home province of Manawatu, Cameron was praised for his scintillating form in the No. 10 jersey.

Champion halfback Bryn Hall told the Aotearoa Rugby Pod that the first-five was playing the “best rugby of his career” after leading Manawatu to the Championship semi-finals.

But the decision was done, and the contract had been signed.

By the time Super Rugby teams came knocking, the Whanganui-born talent had already put pen to paper with Kamaishi for the inaugural Japan Rugby League One campaign.

But in July last year, New Zealand Rugby confirmed that Cameron had signed on to play for the Hurricanes in Super Rugby Pacific in 2023.

Cameron is expected to challenge for the starting spot at first-five, if not make that jersey his own, this season.

While he’s focused on playing “Super footy again” for his home region, Cameron spoke about his desire to don the coveted black jersey once again.

“I definitely think that when you’re playing in New Zealand, everyone wants to be an All Black,” he added

“It’s definitely something that everyone’s striving for here. That’d be awesome to build on that but just stoked to be playing Super footy again.

“That’s what I’m looking forward to the most.”

Cameron will miss the Hurricanes’ trip across the ditch to start their season, having torn his calf in their preseason clash against the Blues.

As reported earlier this week, the Hurricanes are also set to be without rising star Ruben Love.

The Hurricanes begin their season with a blockbuster against the Queensland Reds in Townsville on Saturday, before playing the Melbourne Rebels in Super Rugby Round the following week.

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2 Comments
b
by George! 664 days ago

All the best in your recovery and kia kaha on your quest.

J
Jmann 669 days ago

Sadly, the soft, frantic nature of Japanese rugby does little to prepare players for the real thing. Good to see some talent returning to NZ after a rest and some decent pay.

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JW 5 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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