Elliot joins French club for two years
The ‘end of an era’ feel at the Chiefs continues, with hooker Hika Elliot the latest player to confirm he is leaving after this Super Rugby season.
The former All Black has inked a two-year deal with newly-promoted French club US Oyonnax, with the club announcing on Thursday they had signed the 31-year-old from the start of the French 2017/18 season.
Elliot will leave New Zealand with vast experience, having played 125 Super Rugby matches - 10 for the Hurricanes in 2008, before joining the Chiefs - as well as nine matches for the Maori All Blacks, to go with his five games for the All Blacks - against Munster in 2008 before four tests spread between 2010 and 2015.
Having been the Chiefs’ starting hooker for much of the season, Elliot has dropped back to a bench role with the return from injury of Nathan Harris, who, along with Codie Taylor and Liam Coltman, had surpassed Elliot in the national pecking order.
Though just to be back on the park playing in recent seasons was achievement in itself, with Elliot’s career in limbo following a serious neck injury in 2013, which saw surgeons use his hip bone to fuse the neck to mend the bulging disk. He returned to rugby via Poverty Bay in the 2014 Heartland Championship, then rejoined the Chiefs for 2015.
Now he will look to round out his career with US Oyonnax, who will return to the Top 14 after winning the second division competition last month. Ironically, Elliot will link with former Chiefs team-mate and fellow hooker Quentin MacDonald, who is halfway through his two-year deal.
With Chiefs coach Dave Rennie departing for Glasgow after six years in charge it has coincided with several of the franchise’s senior players taking their talents abroad, with halfback Tawera Kerr-Barlow (Toulon), first five-eighth Aaron Cruden (Montpellier) and winger James Lowe (Leinster) also heading to European clubs.
Japan international, No 8 Michael Leitch, is also set to leave, to link with the Sunwolves, while assistant coach Kieran Keane is off to Connacht.
It will certainly mean a fresh look for new Chiefs coach Colin Cooper, when he takes over ahead of the 2018 season, though the franchise has already locked in several players for next year and beyond, at both ends of the experience spectrum.
Though Sam Cane is off contract at the end of this year, fellow All Blacks Harris, Brodie Retallick (both 2019) and Anton Lienert-Brown (2020) are in place, with fellow internationals Damian McKenzie and Dominic Bird signed through till the end of next season.
Elliot’s departure will open the door for others to push their case behind Harris. New recruit Liam Polwart hasn’t been sighted this season because of injury, while Brayden Mitchell did a good job in his opportunities after youngsters Samisoni Taukei’aho and Sabastian Siataga got a go early in the season when Mitchell was sidelined by concussion.