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Ngani Laumape posts intriguing 'goosebumps' tweet from Wellington
By Liam Heagney
Former All Blacks midfielder Ngani Laumape has ratcheted up speculation about where he will next play after posting an intriguing tweet highlighting the effect that the Sky Stadium in Wellington still has on him. The 29-year-old is currently a free agent after securing a release from his three-year deal with Stade Francais after the completion of just a single season in France.
It was May last year when it was announced that the centre had called time on his 15-cap Test career after opting to take up his Top 14 deal. However, the move didn’t work out as well as he imagined and he has been linked in recent weeks with a switch to the Japanese Top League in Japan unless he is tempted back into the Super Rugby Pacific fold by the NZR.
It was August 1 when Laumape posted a farewell message to Stade fans after an agreement was reached to tear up his contract. “Thank you Stade Francais for the opportunity. Got to meet some amazing people in my time in Paris which I’ll never forget. Merci, Stade Francais. Wish you guys all the best for the upcoming season.”
A week later, a short twelve-word Laumape tweet fired up his followers on Twitter. “Can’t wait for my first rugby game back wherever I end up,” he wrote, a message that resulted in numerous rugby fans from a wide variety of clubs around the world weighing in on the debate and appealing to Laumape to join their favourite team.
Fans of the Hurricanes were among those who replied and their hopes that Laumape might be lining out for them in Wellington in the 2023 Super Rugby Pacific season will be bolstered by the player’s latest twelve-word tweet which he published on Thursday. “Just got into Wellys…….still get them goosebumps driving past Sky Stadium.”
It was 2016, the year the Hurricanes won their first Super Rugby title, when Laumape make his Sky Stadium breakthrough following his switch to union after he initially forged his professional rugby career in the colours of New Zealand Warriors, the NRL side.
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Stephen Larkham, Mick Byrne, Scott Wisental, Ben Mowen, Les Kiss, Jim McKay, Rod Kafer.
There are plenty of great Australian coaches who could do a better job than Schmidt.
Go to commentsThis 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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