Brothers spur Mo’unga as Cruden exit opens door
The young Crusader could have a big year ahead of him.
If rising Crusaders star Richie Mo’unga ever becomes an All Black, New Zealand rugby could have his older brothers to thank.
Mo’unga grew up in Christchurch in a closeknit Pasifika family, steeped in sport.
His father, Saimone, is Tongan and his mother, Lila, is Samoan.
Young Richie was just 14 when he took advantage of his parents’ holiday trip to Australia to have designs depicting each nation tattooed on his leg.
Lila said he was so mad on footy, he once slept with a mouth guard and rugby boots under his pillow in anticipation of each Saturday’s game.
His early idols were big brothers Tonga and Simon, schoolboy rugby union standouts.
Tonga was a New Zealand under-16 international who played with Dan Carter in the Christchurch Boy’s High School first XV.
But he and Simon switched to rugby league after school with the Riccarton Knights club and represented the Canterbury Bulls in the national provincial rugby league championships.
The Mo’unga family always supported their children’s sport and would be seen en masse Christchurch’s Rugby League Park with a young Richie in tow.
‘‘Even now I still idolise them and how they played the game,’’ Richie Mo’unga once told Fairfax.
But there was never any chance he would follow them into the 13-man game.
‘‘They wouldn’t let me play league. They wouldn’t allow me to touch a league ball, they wanted me to stay in rugby [union],’’ he told reporters in 2015.
‘‘I think they said the league boys were tougher and I wouldn’t last the game.’’
Mo’unga played his early rugby as a midfielder for the Marist Albion club and went to Riccarton High School where he admitted he wasn’t a model student.
St Andrew’s College, a private, fee-paying school (with ex-All Black player and coach Alex Grizz Wyllie among its old boys) stepped in during Year 10 with a sports scholarship.
‘‘I hated it [at first], it was tough,’’ Mo’unga said in 2016, reflecting on his school switch. ‘‘Socks had to be right up to my knee and I had to wear a blazer. I didn’t really know what a blazer was and I had to wear a tie.
‘‘The transition was pretty tough and I remember, after the first day, my mother picking me up and I was crying.’’
But once he settled in his rugby flourished, coinciding with a move to first five-eighth.
Three years in the first XV in the Crusaders region secondary schools championships earned him a Canterbury rugby academy scholarship.
In his first year out of school – at the age of 19 – he made his Canterbury national provincial championship debut in 2013.
Canterbury coach Scott Robertson protected his teenage talent in his rookie season, deploying Mo’unga, more often than not, at fullback.
But he was running the cutter in the No 10 slot in subsequent seasons and was elevated to the Crusaders’ wider training group in 2015.
It seemed he might have to bide his time before his big break but he seized his chance in 2016 after Dan Carter, Colin Slade and Tom Taylor departed for France.
Mo’unga had competition for the No 10 jumper in seasoned journeyman Marty McKenzie and Fiji international Ben Volavola.
But he got the nod to start and never looked relinquished his grip on the role. The 22-year-old did not merely survive - he thrived, playing 16 games and scoring 179 points on the Crusaders’ journey to the quarterfinals.
He impressed with his temperament and poise and was rewarded last week with an extended contract through to the end of 2019 and is set to steer Robertson’s new-look Crusaders for at least the next three seasons. Another big season beckons. Aaron Cruden is off to France at the end of the Super campaign, potentially offering Mo’unga an opportunity to duel with Highlanders pivot Lima Sopoaga for the gig as Beauden Barrett’s All Black backup.
Mo’unga won’t be fazed by the additional scrutiny which will come with being a potential All Blacks contender.
He wants to improve his goalkicking success ratio and his defence in his second season.
The latter shouldn’t be an issue: anyone who grows up in a footy family with two older brothers can defend his own corner.