{"id":355002,"date":"2025-12-18T00:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T00:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/355002\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T00:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T00:46:08","slug":"pita-ahki-reflects-on-blues-return-after-eight-years-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/355002\/","title":{"rendered":"Pita Ahki reflects on Blues return after eight years abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Toulouse<\/a> midfielder Pita Ahki<\/a> was offered a move back home, in Auckland, at the Blues, he knew it was the right move for him and his family.<\/p>\n

Ahki, who played 13 times for the Blues<\/a> in the 2014-15 Super Rugby season, has spent the last six years at Toulouse in France, where he made over 130 appearances for the successful French club.<\/p>\n

Toulouse have also had the services of Antoine Dupont<\/a>, Thomas Ramos<\/a>, and Romain Ntamack<\/a> to name a few throughout their recent years, where they have won five Top 14<\/a> championships and two European titles.<\/p>\n

Ahki\u2019s return could fill a gap for Vern Cotter\u2019s side, after their 88-Test centre and All Black veteran, Rieko Ioane<\/a>, decided to take a short playing sabbatical at Leinster<\/a> in Ireland<\/a> for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

The seven-Test Tongan midfielder will be joined by a couple of young midfielders in their position group for 2026, including the likes of Xavi Taele<\/a>, James Cameron<\/a>, and AJ Lam.<\/p>\n

Speaking to media in Auckland<\/a> this week, Ahki explains it\u2019s been good to be back in New Zealand<\/a> after a long-stint in France.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good to be back, like you said, after seven, eight years abroad in Europe, yes, good to come back to nice weather for once, I\u2019ve always come here while it\u2019s winter and everyone\u2019s working, so it\u2019s nice for change,\u201d Ahki said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess, just obviously born and bred in the 09, in Auckland, the Blues was always my team growing up, just watching the likes of Eroni Clarke and all those legends.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy kids are getting older, we want to put them through New Zealand schools\u2026Toulouse has a quality team and they have guys to replace me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Returning to a team that he cares so much about, Ahki believes that his experience will be cool for the young players, not only in the midfield, but for everyone in the squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve come back a lot older, with a few grey hairs, but I come back with experience. I\u2019m not here to change too much, but give what I can to this team. That\u2019s special to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the Blues\u2019 announcement of Ioane\u2019s move to Leinster, where All Blacks<\/a> vice-captain Jordie Barrett<\/a> had spent a season, the Blues then reached out to Ahki to start discussing options about bringing him back to Auckland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s why the conversation started. We knew that Rieko was going and the Blues obviously knew that he was going for a sabbatical.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity was there [after Ioane\u2019s move], and I knew there are already some players here that could put their hands up. I\u2019m here to help where I can,\u201d Ahki said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Toulouse midfielder Pita Ahki was offered a move back home, in Auckland, at the Blues, he knew…\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":{"0":"post-355002","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\/355002","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=355002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355002\/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=355002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}