Ngani Laumape posts intriguing 'goosebumps' tweet from Wellington

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.