Five years for the Crusaders, three years for the Hurricanes, a year for the blues, two years in Japan, a year in Tasman and the Highlanders and now he’s back. Mark Hammett announced in 2020 that he would come back to the place he loves, the place it all started. So what happened before rugby? What occurred since his professional career and what is going to happen after rugby and STC?

Before rugby school was not for him, and he said that it was challenging because he was focused more on sports. It took him two years instead of one to do year level 12. He also said that he had a lot of help through his school experience and the one thing they said to him was “to stick through it and keep working on what he is doing” which really helped him through to his career today. When he left school he actually didn’t know what to do and he still doesn’t, but he said that his family of helped him and encouraged him to do what he wanted.

The Professional Rugby side of his great career looked at who had been the best athletes to coach or train with. He has trained the best of the best like your Dan Carter and Richie McCaw, but he said that he likes training the players that never made it but showed up every training and wanted to learn more and that’s why he likes training school teams.

How did he get into the sport of rugby? He said that when he came to St Thomas of Canterbury, he was playing soccer for Christchurch United and then he made the switch to rugby at the end of year 8. He started rugby because they used to play rugby league on the field and the biggest player ran at him and he smashed him and after that he was known for smashing this big kid.

From his start at STC Mark had many school teams, many coaches, playing for Canterbury, playing in France and eventually New Zealand’s National side. I wanted to know what was it like to debut for the All Blacks? He said that he was fearful because he didn’t want to let anyone down, but he also felt pride because of everyone that helped him on the way to be the best version of himself.

After rugby … well what is his plan going forward in life? He said “it will always be about teaching or coaching because he loves people”. If he wasn’t playing rugby he would have gone down the contracting company line with his dad.

After St Thomas of Canterbury he said that he will always be working with people or he will be here until he retires. There was a little laughter associated with this last comment. But should we come back in ten years and see about that.

By Josh Lennon