{"id":324045,"date":"2025-12-03T02:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T02:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/324045\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T02:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T02:28:10","slug":"ioane-moananu-left-with-chip-on-my-shoulder-after-kiwi-super-rugby-snubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/324045\/","title":{"rendered":"Ioane Moananu left with ‘chip on my shoulder’ after Kiwi Super Rugby snubs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After a breakthrough 2025 season with the Crusaders, Ioane Moananu<\/a> was left out in the cold by New Zealand\u2019s Super Rugby clubs, with no top squad offers on the table. That left the hooker searching for new opportunities offshore, and doing so with a chip on his shoulder.<\/p>\n

Moananu was generating quite the buzz midway through the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> season, with a stretch of four tries in three games while starting in the absence of All Blacks<\/a> Codie Taylor<\/a> and George Bell<\/a> for the Christchurch-based club.<\/p>\n

With Bell and Taylor locked in to remain in Crusaders<\/a> colours on long-term deals, Moananu needed to fight off the advances of any emerging talent to claim the club\u2019s third hooker spot for 2026. Crusaders selectors, though, ultimately decided that 2025 New Zealand<\/a> U20 captain, Manumaua Letiu<\/a>, was the man for that job.<\/p>\n

A Wider Training Group contract was offered, but Moananu declined\u00a0and continued searching for a full-squad contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was looking for a contract in New Zealand to stay back at home, but there was nothing there, just a few injury contracts,\u201d Moananu recently told Rugby.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still wanted to give Super Rugby a good crack. I played so many games last year with the Crusaders, and I thought I did pretty well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only other country that\u2019s in Super Rugby is Australia, so I was like \u2018let me reach out to all the teams in Australia<\/a> and see who would take me\u2019 and fortunately enough, we reached out to Dan (McKellar, NSW Waratahs<\/a> coach) and he was pretty keen on having me, which was pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

Super Rugby Pacific<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Waratahs <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Reds <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The move came as a surprise to many New Zealand fans, and speculation over Wallabies eligibility quickly came to the fore of conversations online. But in an interview on Newstalk ZB earlier this year, the 24-year-old confirmed he has no Australian family or ties that would grant him Wallabies eligibility.<\/p>\n

Instead, the move was entirely about putting himself in a position where he can compete for playing time, rather than waiting on the periphery for injuries to strike.<\/p>\n

Now, Moananu is licking his lips, thinking about all the chances he\u2019ll get to square off with the Kiwi clubs who wouldn\u2019t sign him.<\/p>\n

\u201c100 per cent, that\u2019s the chip on my shoulder that I carry with me all the time now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think they didn\u2019t want me. I think it\u2019s just the way the contracting works, but I just use it as motivation now. Every day I turn up, it\u2019s just that chip on my shoulder that motivates me to get better.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I do play those NZ teams in 2026, it will be fun, man.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was signed, Dave [Porecki] was still here and I thought I was going to be compete and learn off him being a seasoned Wallaby, but then he retired.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they signed Folau [Fainga\u2019a], I was like \u2018sweet, I have someone that I can trust and learn off as well.\u2019 I feel like I\u2019ve got a lot to learn. I\u2019m still young, I\u2019ve got a lot to learn in this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having touched down in Sydney, the excitement of joining a talented Waratahs group has hit, and Moananu sees a bright future for the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve got the talent, we\u2019ve got coaches who are real smart and who know their stuff, but the one thing that I believe makes a championship team is the genuine connections and just how close this team is and how everyone knows each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only do we know each other by names and stuff, but on a deeper level, you notice the players here are real close with each other and love spending time with each other.\u00a0They\u2019ve got that deep connection, and when it comes to the last five-ten minutes, when it\u2019s tough, and you look across, and you see your brother in that jersey, you want to die for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve really got that connection here, and I can see it in the team, which is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a breakthrough 2025 season with the Crusaders, Ioane Moananu was left out in the cold by New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-324045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324045","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=324045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}