Jilted Bridge eyeing overseas move
Unwanted All Black George Bridge is set to leave New Zealand to take up an overseas deal.
Bridge won’t be back at the Crusaders for a seventh season next year, and had been linked with a move to the Chiefs in recent weeks.
However, it’s understood the 27-year-old isn’t interested in playing for another New Zealand franchise and will relocate somewhere considerably further north than Hamilton.
Bridge, who scored 12 tries in 19 tests for the All Blacks, still has plenty of good years ahead of him and could earn significantly more coin in France, England or Japan.
Former All Blacks and Chiefs pivot Stephen Donald, speaking on SENZ this month, suggested Bridge might land at the Chiefs in search of more minutes.
No Crusader played in more games (16) than Bridge this year, but he made only eight starts and his playing time dwindled significantly down the stretch.
It meant there was no major surprise when fellow Crusader Leicester Fainga’anuku, who scored 10 tries during Super Rugby Pacific, was named in the All Blacks ahead of him.
Out of favour with the national selectors, and with no shortage of outside backs ahead of him in the pecking order, it leaves Bridge on the verge of heading to the northern hemisphere, rather than staying in a bid to fight his way back into the All Blacks ahead of next year’s World Cup in France.
He isn’t the only outside back not returning to the Crusaders next year.
Kini Naholo has attracted interest from at least two North Island franchises and is also departing.
Bridge will bow out as the Crusaders’ fourth leading try scorer, having touched down 37 times since debuting for the Christchurch-based franchise in 2017, head coach Scott Robertson’s first year in charge.
Only Caleb Ralph (52), Sevu Reece (44) and Leon MacDonald (42) have scored more tries for the 13-times champions.
Bridge went into 2022 wanting to bury a mixed bag of a 2021 season, which included a ruptured pectoral forcing him to miss the start of the season, before minor knee surgery and appendicitis also sidelined him.
Then there was his shocker against South Africa in Queensland during last year’s Rugby Championship, when the wing dropped four bombs, the first of which led to Sbu Nkosi scoring.
‘‘I’d had reasonably smooth sailing up until last year, and then I had three different surgeries in the space of about eight months, and had my posterior cruciate ligament strain as well. It was a number of different injuries, and I had a few performances I wasn’t happy with,’’ he said in February.
In and out of the national side last year, Bridge nevertheless finished 2021 pleased with his performances against Italy and France, convincing himself he was still good enough to wear the black jersey.
However, a fixture in the Crusaders’ No 11 jersey much of the past six years, he found himself fighting an uphill battle after quickly sinking in the team’s stacked outside backs depth chart this year.
Bridge isn’t yet lost to New Zealand rugby, given he’s expected to play a part for Canterbury in this year’s NPC.
Canterbury will name their squad next week, the same week the Barbarians are set to confirm Robertson as their head coach for November’s match against the All Blacks XV in London.
Robertson will link up with former Crusaders assistant Ronan O’Gara for the one-off match against the side New Zealand Rugby had lined him up to coach in 2020, before Covid-19 chewed up and spat out the playing calendar.
‘‘I’d had reasonably smooth sailing up until last year, and then I had three different surgeries in the space of about eight months.’’ George Bridge