Norman Reginald Goodes (born 4 April 1991) is a former

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n-born

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 it ...

player who played as a

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for in New Zealand's domestic

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from 2010 to 2016 and for the in the international Super Rugby competition from 2012 to 2016. He announced his retirement in early 2018 on medical advice after suffering a number of concussions.

Early career

Born in Witbank, South Africa, Goodes emigrated to New Zealand with his family in 2006. Having attended Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool in

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, he completed his schooling at

Wellington College Wellington College may refer to: *Wellington College, Berkshire, an independent school in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England ** Wellington College International Shanghai ** Wellington College International Tianjin * Wellington College, Wellington, Ne ...

where he played first XV rugby for 3 years. After graduating high school, he started playing for Poneke in Wellington's local club rugby competition.

Senior career

He first played provincial rugby with during the

2010 ITM Cup The 2010 ITM Cup season was the fifth season of New Zealand's provincial rugby union competition since it turned professional in 2006. The regular season began on July 29, when Taranaki hosted Northland. It involved the top fourteen rugby unio ...

, making a solitary appearance in a 20-11 victory over . Serving primarily as back-up to the more experienced Jacob Ellison through 2011, Goodes did manage to earn more game time, appearing in 7 matches with 5 of these appearances from the start. He only played 5 times during

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, but was much more of a regular in

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, featuring in 11 of the Lions 12 matches during a year which saw them finish as runner-up to following a 29-13 defeat in the ITM Cup Premiership final.

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was an absolute disaster of a year as far as the men from New Zealand's capital were concerned as they finished bottom of the Premiership log with just 1 win from 10 outings and were subsequently relegated to the Championship division for 2015. A head injury meant that Goodes could only play twice in 2014 and was left watching helplessly from the sidelines as his team-mates struggled on the field. Wellington were unable to win promotion at the first time of asking, finishing 2nd behind in the Championship standings before being defeated 26-25 by the same opposition in the playoff final. Goodes had fully recovered from the previous season's injury struggles and played 11 of the Lions 12 games, netting his first 2 provincial tries in the process. In

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, Wellington once again failed to gain promotion, this time after being runners-up to on the Championship log they were surprisingly defeated 40-37 at home by in the playoff semi-finals. Goodes once again had injuries to contend with and was only able to play 5 times during the campaign, but despite this, he managed to score an impressive 4 tries.

Super Rugby

At the age of 21 and with barely a season and a half of provincial experience under his belt, Goodes was named in the squad for the

2012 Super Rugby season The 2012 Super Rugby season was the second season of the current 15-team format for the Super Rugby competition, which involves teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. For sponsorship reasons, this competition is known as FxPro Super R ...

.http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/super-rugby/6434259/Hurricanes-prop-Goodes-ready-for-testing-year Hurricanes prop Goodes ready for testing year Despite being hindered by a shoulder injury sustained in a pre-season hit out against the , he acquitted himself well during his debut season of Super Rugby, starting 4 times and playing 8 games in total. 12 more appearances, with all but one coming from the replacements bench, and a debut Super Rugby try followed in

before he also spent large parts of the 2014 season as a bit part player. He really started to establish himself as a regular for the 'Canes in 2015, starting 16 games and scoring 3 tries to help his franchise reach the Super Rugby final where they lost 21-14 at home to the . The following year they were able to go one step further and lifted the Super Rugby title following a 20-3 victory over South African side, the . He played 13 times and helped himself to another 3 tries, however he was forced to sit out the final stages of the season following a head injury received in a match against the . Goodes did not play any Super Rugby matches in 2017 due to an ongoing problem with concussions, and he retired in February 2018, aged 26, for the same reason.

International

Goodes was a New Zealand Schools representative in 2009. On 5 November 2016, he featured for the

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in their 31-31 draw against the land of his birth, at

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. He started the match wearing the number 1 jersey in a side containing his Hurricanes team-mates, Michael Fatialofa and Brad Shields before being substituted in the 51st minute by and loosehead

Toby Smith Toby Grafftey-Smith (29 October 1970 – 11 April 2017), known professionally as Toby Smith, was an English musician, most famous for being the keyboardist and co-songwriter for Jamiroquai from 1992 until his departure in 2002. Background and ...

Career Honours

Hurricanes * Super Rugby -

Super Rugby Statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodes, Reggie Living people New Zealand rugby union players Hurricanes (rugby union) players Wellington rugby union players People from Witbank 1991 births Rugby union props Rugby union hookers South African emigrants to New Zealand People educated at Wellington College, Wellington Barbarian F.C. players Rugby union players from Mpumalanga