To the MANOR BORN

There’s any number of reasons why the All Blacks started tracking Jack Goodhue back in 2015 when he was with the New Zealand Under 20 team.

They knew they would be in the market for new midfielders in 2016 because both Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith were moving offshore and Goodhue had something they liked.

They could sense that he was driven, burning with desire to grow his game and develop. And they felt that in Goodhue they had an athlete who was mature beyond his years – someone who was going to listen, learn and evolve which are precisely the qualities that all coaches want to see.

With all that in his favour, there was a degree of conviction that Goodhue would find a way to make his case for inclusion: that he would graduate from Canterbury to the Crusaders and in time, make a compelling case for test selection.

And so it proved. After missing most of 2016 with a serious knee injury, Goodhue was ever present in the Crusaders midfield in 2017 and toured Europe with the All Blacks at the end