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'I'm limping my way to a hundy': Anton Lienert-Brown on finally reaching elusive milestone

Anton Lienert-Brown with ball in hand for the Chiefs. Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images

Anton Lienert-Brown’s 100th Super Rugby match has been looming over him for some time now, a string of unfortunately timed injuries has kept the 59-cap All Black just a hair away from the elusive milestone.

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The time finally came on Friday night in Dunedin, the Chiefs midfielder claiming his century in a 10th consecutive win in the 2023 Super Rugby Pacific season.

Despite his veteran status within the team and vast experience in professional rugby, Lienert-Brown admitted the nerves were heavy prior to kick-off.

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“I was extremely nervous,” he told Sky Sport. “The boys have been going so well, and I didn’t want to stuff it up for them. I didn’t want to be the guy on my 100th to wreck the winning streak.

“I love my ice baths and my saunas, so I’ve done a lot of visualisation over the last 10 weeks, and I’ve been ready for this moment for a long time.”

Earlier in the year, Lienert-Brown sat down with fellow Chiefs and All Blacks regular Damian McKenzie, who was also anticipating his 100th match, and reflected on his career.

No stranger to injury and the adversity it comes with, the 28-year-old’s journey over the past two seasons isn’t dissimilar to his first season in Chiefs colours.

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“I’m limping my way to a hundy. Dislocated my shoulder at 98, a high ankle sprain at 99.

“I dislocated my shoulder in the last game of school, I moved up to the Chiefs, dislocated my shoulder again, had to get surgery. After being out for a year, they said ‘don’t worry, you won’t play’ but as you know back then, there used to be quite a lot of injuries, so ended up playing on the right sting and that was my first game back since high school.”

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While the jump from high school to Super Rugby was in part due to the injury, Lienert-Brown joins an elite club of players to skip NPC-level rugby; a fact McKenzie joked might end up on the bottle cap of a Waikato Draught, the region’s iconic beer.

“That’s a bucket list for me, so hopefully,” Lienert-Brown replied with a grin before going on to discuss his Chiefs journey.

“I think I’m very fortunate to be a part of the Chiefs for a long time, and every time you put on the jersey, it’s special. It’s such an amazing region to play for, the fans are great through thick and thin, but I think it’s the friendships you make throughout your career off the field and there’s been a lot of special people be apart of the Chiefs and I guess that’s the thing I’ve enjoyed the most.”

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Admittedly unsure of his talents coming out of high school, it was a familiar face in the form of New Zealand coaching legend Wayne Smith who was the first to identify the young Cantabrian’s potential, the vote of confidence proving just the spark Lienert-Brown needed to pursue his dream.

“In all honesty, I didn’t really think I would make a career out of professional rugby, and then halfway through the season, to have someone like Smithy tap me on the shoulder was unbelievable.

“That probably grew my belief that if a coach of his calibre thinks I’m alright, that’s where the belief started.”

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t
takata 39 minutes ago
Can Les Bleus avoid a Black-wash in New Zealand?

The men at the beating heart of France’s first Test effort at Dunedin – number eight Guillard, the four half-backs [Le Garrec or Jauneau at nine, Segonds or Hastoy at 10], Fickou at 12 and Attissogbe at full-back] are all in imminent danger of playing over 2000 minutes, or over 30 games, or both. Overall, it is very hard to see what France is gaining in the player welfare equation. It is simply replacing one set of overworked players with another.

A very simple explanation is that, bar Joris Seconds at Bayonne, none of those players, Guillard (Lyon), Le Garrec (Racing), Hastoy (La Rochelle), Fickou (Racing) and Attissogbe (Pau) clocked much time during the highest level games of the club season which ended 7 days before the first test; their club didn’t qualify for the European Champions Cup final rounds and/or didn’t play the Top 14 play off.


So they all had quite a few off weekends that barely none of the first list could have enjoyed up to the end of June, except those injured or not in their prime. ie. Baille started only 5 games for Toulouse and 0 for France during the whole 2024-2025 season -explaining his stats- and it would have make no sense to send him over younger lads.


Joris Seconds (28), has a lot of game sheets, but shared all his game time at Nr. 10 with Camille Lopez (who is retired now); ie. he only clocked 108’ during his two last games in play off. He could also fully rest during the 6 Nations when Top 14 wasn’t playing.


Secondly, bar Mikaël Guillard, this second list was also made of players that weren’t used at all, or very little, during the whole 6 Nations. Guillard started 3/5 games and clocked 187’, Attissogbe 160’ - 2/2 start, Fickou 80’ - 1/1 start, Le Garrec 50’ - 0/3 start, plus a few more minutes by others.


Thirdly, it’s clear that Galthié wanted some preparation time and a full game (England A) before Dunedin. Most of his first 23 just did that as they ended their season on 7 June. His selection of 42 players was planned in 3 groups pending their availability: 28 + 9 + 5. Some players joined after the first group but could still make the game sheet at Dunedin because they were obviously needed.


But, as Galthié usually do, the first test team will rotate and very few will actually play all three tests (maybe Le Garrec & Seconds?). From what we know already, neither Guillard (@ 8) nor Villière (@ 11) will be on the next game sheet - so your projections on game time / game played are not worth the time you took to type them:


Here is the probable team for next test (with age and club):


Backs: Barré (22, Paris), Attissogbe (20, Pau), Depoortere (22, Bordeaux)

Centers: Barrassi (27, Toulouse), Gailleton (22, Pau)

Halfs: Seconds (28, Bayonne), Le Garrec (23, La Rochelle ex-Racing)

3rd Row: Van Tonder (27, Perpignan), Abadie (27, Toulon), Bochaton (24, Bordeaux)

2nd Row: Halagahu (23, Toulon), Brenan (23, Toulouse)

1st Row: Colombe (27, Toulouse ex-La Rochelle), Barlot (28, Castres), Erdocio (25, Montpellier)


Bench: Bourgarit (27, La Rochelle), Mallez (24, Toulouse/Aix), Montagne (24, Clermont), Taofifenua (34, Racing), Woki (26, Bordeaux ex-Racing), Vergnes-Taillefer (28, Bordeaux), Daubagna (31, Pau), Hastoy (28, La Rochelle).

24 Go to comments
S
Soliloquin 1 hour ago
Can Les Bleus avoid a Black-wash in New Zealand?

Thanks for that article! The analogy is very interesting, and it helps opening up the player welfare debate around the number of games and minutes played.

Better rested players mean more quality rugby. It means less risk of injury, so less risk of losing money by paying a salary to an injured player.

But it also means choices of games.


For those French players who were not involved in the Top14 playoffs, yet approaching and breaking the 2000’/25 games criteria, like Fickou, Auradou, Le Garrec or Guillard, were the 3 weeks enough to rest between the last game of the season and the first test?

While bearing in mind there was still a game the week before against a strong English squad at Twickenham.


Top 14 clubs and the LNR (but also the ECPR) need to understand that they hugely participate in the fatigue of players - LBB stated that he was utterly exhausted by the season 2 days ago. And adding this World Club competition is scary, scarily resembling the current World Club competition in football held in the US, which pushes some players to go beyond 70 games/year…


Would a restriction of games per player possible, so that they could be involved in Summer tours a possibility? With maybe part of the salary taken care by the French Federation, proportionate to the number of missed games?

How such a compensation could come? Can the French Federation find the funds for that?

What is the number of games possible? How would fare the clubs fighting relegation - like how could Stade Français accept this season, when they saved themselves almost during the last round, that Léo Barré could stop playing for the club if he was to go on tour against NZ with so much at stake?


I have no clue for all of that, but I have no doubt solutions can be found.

24 Go to comments
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