Sam Beard (born 3 May 1990 in Timaru,

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

) is a

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 ...

footballer. His regular playing position is

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Career

Beard moved to Christchurch as a young player to pursue a career in rugby and kicked off matters in earnest with Burnside's championship-winning team. He was then called up to the provincial Canterbury B team and, after an impressive season in which he was named player of the year, was brought into the Crusader Knights, the development squad of

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Building on various Southern Hem ...

giants Crusaders. Bay of Plenty then offered the midfielder the next step on the provincial ladder, where he played out his first season before being approached in 2013 to join

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

in Scotland. Having made his initial appearances for the team from the replacements' bench, Beard started a match for the first time on 28 February 2014, during which he ran in Edinburgh's second try in a victory over

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. Beard was contracted to Edinburgh until 2016, having signed a contract extension at the end of his first season with the club. On 22 February 2016, Beard signed a two-year deal with Welsh region the Dragons from the 2016–17 season. He was released by the Dragons at the end of the 2017–18 season.

Rugby Statistics

References

Sam Beard is nephew of John Haggart

External links

Edinburgh profileDragons Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beard, Sam 1990 births Living people Crusaders (rugby union) players Dragons RFC players Edinburgh Rugby players Expatriate rugby union players in Scotland Expatriate rugby union players in the United States Expatriate rugby union players in Wales New England Free Jacks players New Zealand expatriate rugby union players New Zealand expatriate sportspeople in Scotland New Zealand expatriate sportspeople in Wales New Zealand expatriate sportspeople in the United States Rugby union centres Rugby union players from Timaru