{"id":914465,"date":"2026-10-03T08:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T08:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914465\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T08:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T08:50:10","slug":"former-maori-all-blacks-captain-kurt-eklund-retires-from-rugby-after-neck-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/914465\/","title":{"rendered":"Former M\u0101ori All Blacks captain Kurt Eklund retires from rugby after neck injury"},"content":{"rendered":"
The front-rower appeared seven times for the M\u0101ori All Blacks, but was named captain in the 2025 squad which played the Japan XV in Tokyo, and Scotland in Whang\u0101rei.<\/p>\n
Kurt Eklund let fans know about his retirement from rugby due to neck injuries in a social media post. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
Tributes to Eklund flooded in on his post, including from All Black Ruben Love.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the best brother,\u201d the All Blacks No 10 wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cMade me feel welcomed first day M\u0101ori ABs 2022 will never forget. Respect bro!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce our Skip, always our Skip,\u201d the Bay of Plenty Instagram account commented, while current Black Fern 7s player Jaymie Kolose called him \u201cthe man\u201d.<\/p>\n
His father Mark also left a touching tribute in the comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sit here with tears running down my cheeks, but I couldn\u2019t be prouder son of all that you have achieved both on and off the field,\u201d Mark wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re the man and Ranger is well placed with you as his role model.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo attack whatever\u2019s ahead. I\u2019ll always be behind you mate. Love love love you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The front-rower appeared seven times for the M\u0101ori All Blacks, but was named captain in the 2025 squad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[9490,3265,64,63,101443,9658,3925,9659,481824,21694,5587,23690,3899,42726,96388,51226,29887,12976,760,85],"class_list":["post-914465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-after","tag-all","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-because","tag-blacks","tag-blues","tag-captain","tag-eklund","tag-former","tag-from","tag-hooker","tag-injury","tag-kurt","tag-mori","tag-neck","tag-retired","tag-retires","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914465","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=914465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}