Michael William Vincent Collins (born 3 June 1993) is a professional

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

player who plays as centre. He is a former captain of the

Otago Boys' High School , motto_translation = "The ‘right’ learning builds a heart of oak" , type = State secondary, day and boarding , established = ; years ago , streetaddress= 2 Arthur Street , region = Dunedin , state = Otago , zipcod ...

1st XV and a former New Zealand Schools representative. He has turned down offers from the

NRL The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

franchise the

Melbourne Storm The Melbourne Storm are a rugby league club based in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia that participates in the National Rugby League. The first fully professional rugby league team based in the state, the Storm entered the competition in 1998. ...

and ITM Cup Premiership side

Waikato Waikato () is a Regions of New Zealand, local government region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipa District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton City ...

to play for Otago. Collins most recently played for the Ospreys in the

United Rugby Championship The United Rugby Championship (URC) is an annual rugby union competition involving professional teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, and Wales. The current name was adopted in 2021 when the league expanded to include four South Afr ...

Career

Collins made his Otago debut in 2012, and played for the NPC side until 2020. In 2015, Collins joined Welsh club the

Scarlets The Scarlets () are one of the four professional Welsh rugby union teams and are based in Llanelli, Wales. Their home ground is the Parc y Scarlets stadium. They play in the United Rugby Championship and the European Rugby Champions Cup (which ...

on a short-term contract, returning to New Zealand at the end of the season. Upon his return to New Zealand, Collins joined Super Rugby team the

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

. Otago-born Collins joined his home region, the Highlanders, for the

2020 Super Rugby season The 2020 Super Rugby season was the 25th season of Super Rugby, an international men's rugby union competition organised by SANZAAR involving teams from Argentina, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa. It is the third tournament in its ...

and was involved with the side for the next two seasons. Collins returned to Wales in 2021, joining the Ospreys in the newly formed

. He made his debut on 26 September 2021, scoring two tries in a Man of the Match performance against the

Dragons A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

. On 23 June 2023, Collins announced his departure from the Ospreys.

Personal life

Collins is Welsh-qualified, through his Llanelli-born grandfather.

References

External links

Michael Collins New Zealand U20s profileOspreys profile
1993 births New Zealand rugby union players Otago rugby union players Rugby union centres People from Queenstown, New Zealand People educated at Otago Boys' High School Scarlets players New Zealand expatriate rugby union players New Zealand expatriate sportspeople in Wales Expatriate rugby union players in Wales Living people Blues (Super Rugby) players Highlanders (rugby union) players Ospreys (rugby union) players Rugby union players from Otago {{NewZealand-rugbyunion-bio-1990s-stub