Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nHowever, fulfilling that World Cup dream would likely require the 29-year-old\u00a0two-time National Rugby League (NRL)\u00a0champion to leave Racing and join a side back home.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, to play for New Zealand, you’ve got to be in New Zealand,” Manu told AFP in his first interview since arriving in France last summer.<\/p>\n
“I’m over here at the moment. I’ll say I’d love to, but just see if it all works out. I know how much good talent there is in those teams.<\/p>\n
“I’d love to do that (play at the World Cup) but I just want to focus on this Top 14 season and keep improving.<\/p>\n
“I feel like\u00a0I’ve\u00a0come a long way from when I first started in Japan, but I know\u00a0I’ve\u00a0got a long way to go,” the former Sydney Rooster added.<\/p>\n
Waikato-born Manu was a dominant force\u00a0in the NRL, helping Roosters win win the title in 2018 and 2019; he was named the league’s best\u00a0centre\u00a0four years ago.<\/p>\n
Former Roosters team-mate and now Wallabies poster boy Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii has also made the switch of codes in recent years as have former league players Angus Crichton and Zac Lomax this season.<\/p>\n
“I think\u00a0union’s\u00a0a lot more tactical,\u00a0with\u00a0obviously\u00a0the kicking,\u00a0the scrums\u00a0and all the line-out\u00a0stuff,”\u00a0Manu\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes it gets a bit chaotic with the\u00a0phase\u00a0play.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes\u00a0it can be unpredictable, so I enjoy that side of the game,” the former New Zealand\u00a0rugby league international said.<\/p>\n
– Rokocoko ‘the man’ –<\/p>\n
Manu has played\u00a016 times for Racing this campaign in the leafy western Parisian suburbs.<\/p>\n
During his days off\u00a0he makes video blogs about his time in the French capital trying some local delicacies.<\/p>\n
“The baguettes are nice, I enjoy that, bakeries and stuff,” Manu said.<\/p>\n
“There are\u00a0so\u00a0many\u00a0things to do in Paris and I feel\u00a0very lucky\u00a0to live here.<\/p>\n
“Whenever we get time off, I just try to get into the city and check out different shops, try different foods.<\/p>\n
“Me and my family really enjoy it here so far, so\u00a0it’s\u00a0been good,” he added.<\/p>\n
Manu’s transition across sports in a new country, speaking a different language, has been helped by the presence of ex-All Blacks winger Joe\u00a0Rokocoko who is Racing’s assistant coach.<\/p>\n
“When I was\u00a0growing up in New Zealand, he was the man,” said\u00a0Manu.<\/p>\n
“A lot of New Zealand kids would have looked up to him, like myself.<\/p>\n
“You’ve\u00a0got a lot of respect for him because\u00a0he’s\u00a0been at the pinnacle of the game, and\u00a0he’s\u00a0done some\u00a0big things\u00a0in rugby.<\/p>\n
“He’s been an awesome coach.\u00a0He’s got that detail in him with what he wants to get across to the boys, but\u00a0he’s\u00a0also got that fire too.”<\/p>\n
This weekend, Manu is set to face another compatriot in Stade\u00a0Francais’ former All Blacks scrum-half Tawera Kerr-Barlow.<\/p>\n
The 2015 Rugby World Cup winner, now 35, has inspired his side to third place in the Top 14 table, nine points ahead of Manu’s outfit, with six rounds of the regular\u00a0season left and the hunt for the play-offs hotting up.<\/p>\n
“It’ll be nice to play against another Kiwi boy and see how he’s going,” Manu said.<\/p>\n
“I know\u00a0he’s\u00a0just good\u00a0at his\u00a0craft,\u00a0he does his job well.<\/p>\n
“I\u00a0haven’t\u00a0watched too much of him over here, but\u00a0I’m\u00a0pretty sure\u00a0he’s\u00a0still\u00a0a great player,” Manu added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Racing 92\u00a0centre\u00a0Joey Manu\u00a0says he would love to play for New Zealand at next year’s Rugby World Cup as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[10751,64,63,72677,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-612102","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-all-blacks","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-french-top-14","12":"tag-national-rugby-league","13":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","14":"tag-nrl","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612102","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=612102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}