Brodie Retallick will join the growing list of All Blacks heading to Japan after the Rugby World Cup in France, with the New Zealand lock having signed up for a second stint with the Kobe Steelers.<\/p>\n
Retallick’s 2024 plans were confirmed a day after veteran All Black backs Aaron Smith and Beauden Barrett announced deals with Toyota in Japan’s top flight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Regarded as one of New Zealand’s finest locks, 100-test Retallick will play his last season with the Chiefs in Super Rugby this year and push for selection at a third World Cup in France.<\/p>\n
The former World Rugby Player of the Year played for the Steelers in the 2020 and 2021 seasons.<\/p>\n
All Blacks coach Ian Foster paid tribute to the 31-year-old from north Canterbury.<\/p>\n
“Brodie is a special person who continues to contribute a massive amount to the All Blacks,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“I’m pleased he has been able to secure his next step in life. But I’m also fully confident that he will remain 100% focused on what we need to achieve this year.”<\/p>\n
-Reuters<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brodie Retallick will join the growing list of All Blacks heading to Japan after the Rugby World Cup in France, with the New Zealand lock having signed up for a second stint with the Kobe Steelers. Retallick’s 2024 plans were confirmed a day after veteran All Black backs Aaron Smith and Beauden Barrett announced deals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2899,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2897\/revisions\/2899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}