{"id":583482,"date":"2026-08-28T23:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T23:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/583482\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T23:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T23:56:11","slug":"japan-bound-magpies-and-hurricanes-star-loosie-devan-flanders-opens-up-on-his-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/583482\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan-bound Magpies and Hurricanes star loosie Devan Flanders opens up on his \u2018why\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MarkMark Story<\/a><\/p>\n

Deputy editor\u00b7Hawkes Bay Today\u00b7<\/p>\n

28 Aug, 2026 06:00 PM3 mins to read<\/p>\n

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Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.Subscribe now<\/p>\n

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Devan Flanders was in white-hot form before signing a three-year deal with Japan\u2019s Urayasu D-Rocks \u2013 a move that potentially cost him an All Blacks call-up. The 27-year-old Hurricanes and Magpies barnstorming loosie talks to Hawke\u2019s Bay Today deputy editor Mark Story about his \u201cwhy\u201d. <\/p>\n

\n Given your stellar season
\n for the Hurricanes, a new All Blacks coach and pending world cup, the timing of your move surprised many fans.\n <\/p>\n

This decision was extremely hard, and we went back and forwards over it many times. I suppose the final part of that is knowing that we only have a short period of our lives playing rugby. All it takes is one injury, and our career can be over. I feel as if I have been playing very similarly over the past few years and have given the All Blacks a big enough crack. But it is also a business, and when the time was right for my fianc\u00e9e and me, we made the decision to head offshore.<\/p>\n

As a local player, your native Hawke\u2019s Bay Magpies and Hurricanes provenance has been a big part of your \u201cwhy\u201d. What do you tap into in Japan, given you can no longer draw from this well?<\/p>\n

These two clubs have been a huge part of my life and have contributed a lot to the person I am today. They\u2019ll always hold a strong place in my heart, and I\u2019ll continue to follow and support them. Although, my \u2018why\u2019 has always been my family and future family. So, moving to Japan, I\u2019ll take that same mindset with me. D-Rocks will also become my family, so I\u2019ll be doing everything I can to have a positive influence on the team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Story Deputy editor\u00b7Hawkes Bay Today\u00b7 28 Aug, 2026 06:00 PM3 mins to read \u200c Subscribe to listenAccess…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[287212,1443,95,287213,9218,8136,277505,4187,3468,33092,287208,287211,32896,8753,16555,1976,293,49155,16847,287207,119746,9612,32573,2683,111,139,69,90,2680,36200,48613,213,2737,427,301,1361,71162,1865,810,287210,287209,4276,102],"class_list":["post-583482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-27yearold","tag-about","tag-and","tag-barnstorming","tag-before","tag-blacks","tag-callup","tag-cost","tag-deal","tag-deputy","tag-devan","tag-drocks","tag-editor","tag-flanders","tag-form","tag-hawkes","tag-his","tag-hurricanes","tag-japans","tag-japanbound","tag-loosie","tag-magpies","tag-mark","tag-move","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-opens","tag-potentially","tag-signing","tag-sports","tag-star","tag-story","tag-talks","tag-that","tag-threeyear","tag-today","tag-up","tag-urayasu","tag-whitehot","tag-why","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}