{"id":233611,"date":"2025-10-22T23:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T23:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/233611\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T23:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T23:08:08","slug":"five-time-top-14-champion-pita-ahki-inks-deal-with-hometown-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/233611\/","title":{"rendered":"Five-time Top 14 champion Pita Ahki inks deal with hometown Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pita Ahki has called time on a superbly successful Top 14<\/a> career with Toulouse, with the next chapter in his rugby journey to be a homecoming with the Blues<\/a> in Super Rugby Pacific.<\/p>\n

The Auckland<\/a> product played a baker\u2019s dozen of games with his hometown team after a 2014 debut, but after managing just one appearance for the Hurricanes<\/a> in the 2017 season, he opted for a move north. One season at Connacht<\/a> was followed by a fruitful seven years in France.<\/p>\n

The midfield star said a return to the City of Sails wasn\u2019t on his radar when assessing his options moving forward, and it was a pleasant surprise when the Blues came calling.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old said there wasn\u2019t any other Super Rugby team he would come back to, but the chance to represent his home region was something special.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really excited to be coming home, back to where my rugby journey first started,\u201d Ahki said. \u201cIt means a lot to return with my family after our time in France, and I\u2019m looking forward to bringing those experiences with me and contributing on and off the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahki\u2019s arrival on a two-year deal coincides with Rieko Ioane\u2019s sabbatical season with Leinster, Mark Tele\u2019a\u2019s departure for Toyota Verblitz, and Bryce Heem\u2019s retirement.<\/p>\n

The Blues\u2019 new GM, Murray Williams, was excited to welcome a proven winner back to the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cPita\u2019s a world-class midfielder with immense experience in Europe, and he\u2019s also one of our own who grew up in Auckland and started his professional journey here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have him back in Blues colours bringing that leadership and winning mentality is exciting for our squad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pita Ahki has called time on a superbly successful Top 14 career with Toulouse, with the next chapter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-233611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}