Brodie Retallick is the one that got away. Twice.
The big All Blacks lock has carved a career for himself at the Chiefs after making his first class break through with Hawke’s Bay.
This for a lad born in Rangiora and educated at Christchurch Boys High School, yet was somehow missed by the Canterbury and Crusaders talent scouts.
As he was finishing seventh form his First XV coach, Richard Taylor, suggested he have a chat with Tom Coventry who was coaching Hawke’s Bay with Peter Russell.
With nothing on offer from Canterbury, it was an easy shift north.
“I got a little bit of money as an academy player and they put me in the polytech to do fabricating and welding, and that was it really,” Retallick says of the Hawke’s Bay deal.
He isn’t critical of Canterbury not noticing the skills of a player who would
