Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nFor the 30-year-old, it’s a homecoming of sorts, with Bridge born in Gisborne, north of Napier.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got lots of cousins here in Hawke’s Bay, and then my family’s from up the road in Gisborne, two and a half hours away, so my whole family’s got a whole tent booked out for tomorrow night, which is great,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n
“It should be good to catch up with everyone, and then I’ve got lots of schoolmates in Hawke’s Bay still as well, so it’s a very social week for me.”<\/p>\n
Bridge is settling back into life in Super Rugby after a stint in the Top 14 with Montpellier, adjusting to the changes since he’s been away.<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot of young faces around, that’s for sure,” he said and smiled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“But I think particularly against the Kiwi teams,\u00a0[they’re] keeping the ball alive and the offloads and whatnot,\u00a0I suppose it was the same when I was playing a few years ago,\u00a0but just the desire to play and throw the ball around,\u00a0I love it.\u00a0It makes it a good game and a good spectator sport as well for everyone to watch, and it’s cool to be a part of.<\/p>\n
“..After the first couple of full games I was definately blowing but I’m starting to get in the swing of things now. I like how everyone’s keen to attack and keep the ball alive and score some good tries.”<\/p>\n
Bridge is very familiar with the midfield threat of the Hurricanes, coming through the ranks with Jordie Barrett at Canterbury.<\/p>\n
“He’s a massive part\u00a0of their attack.\u00a0He can pass, he can carry, he can kick.\u00a0He’s got everything to offer,” he added.<\/p>\n
“It’s been pretty amazing seeing him grow. I played with him in Canterbury when we first started playing NPC and he was playing fullback for usand I was on the wing so we’ve been playing together and against each other for a long time now<\/p>\n
“He’s one of the best players in the world these days, and he’s pretty influential for the Hurricanes, both on attack and defence. We’ll try and nullify what he can offer tomorrow night and it will be good to go toe-to-toe with him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Bridge knows he’ll have some support in Napier as the former All Black enjoys life back in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85,48013,11229],"class_list":["post-535105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby-pacific","tag-western-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535105","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=535105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}