Sean Daniel Maitland (born 14 September 1988) is a

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 ...

-born Scottish

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. He plays for

Saracens file:Erhard Reuwich Sarazenen 1486.png, upright 1.5, Late 15th-century Germany in the Middle Ages, German woodcut depicting Saracens Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek language, Greek and Latin writings, to refer ...

in the RFU Premiership. He previously played for

London Irish London Irish RFC is a professional rugby union club which competes in the Premiership, the top division of English rugby union. The club has also competed in the Anglo-Welsh Cup, the European Champions Cup and European Challenge Cup. While ...

and before that for

Glasgow Warriors Glasgow Warriors are a professional rugby union side from Scotland. The team plays in the United Rugby Championship league and in the European Professional Club Rugby tournaments. In the 2014–15 season they won the Pro12 title and became t ...

in the

PRO12 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 ...

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

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 ...

and

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

in the

Mitre 10 Cup The mitre (Commonwealth English) (; Greek: μίτρα, "headband" or "turban") or miter (American English; see spelling differences), is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of bishops and certain abbots in t ...

. His regular playing positions are Wing and Full back.

Early life

Maitland was born in

Tokoroa Tokoroa ( mi, Te Kaokaoroa o Pātetere) is the fifth-largest town in the Waikato region of the North Island of New Zealand and largest settlement in the South Waikato District. Located 30 km southwest of Rotorua, close to the foot of the M ...

, New Zealand, on 14 September 1988. He attended

Hamilton Boys' High School Hamilton Boys' High School is a boys' secondary school in Hamilton, New Zealand and is the largest secondary school in the Waikato region. The school was established as Hamilton High School in 1911 but was later split into separate boys' and gir ...

where he played in the first XV and competed in athletics, recording a personal best of 11.29 and 22.30 seconds for the 100m and 200m respectively, and threw the discus 45.47m. Maitland is half-Scottish and is of Samoan and Maori descent from his mother's side. He is the cousin of New Zealand born, Australian rugby union player

Quade Cooper Quade Santini Cooper (born 5 April 1988) is a professional rugby union player and occasional boxer. Although born in New Zealand, he has represented Australia in rugby at international level. He currently plays for Hanazono Liners in Japan, ...

. Maitland and cousin Cooper also grew up with future Kiwi Rugby League international

Isaac John Isaac John (born 12 December 1988) is a former New Zealand professional rugby league footballer who previously played for the Mount Pritchard Mounties in the Intrust Super Premiership. A Cook Islands and New Zealand international representativ ...

Rugby career

Maitland spent 2005 and 2006 in the New Zealand Schools team and was a member of New Zealand under-19 World Cup winning side in 2007 and the New Zealand under-20 side in 2008 winning the IRB Junior World Championship. Sean scored four tries against teams from Argentina, Ireland and Wales. One of his teammates was John Hardie who he would go on to play with in the Scotland Rugby Team. Maitland debuted for

in 2006, and made his

debut for the Crusaders against the

ACT Brumbies The ACT Brumbies (known from 2005–2022 as simply the Brumbies) is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), The team competes in Super Rugby and named for the brumby, feral horses whi ...

in 2008 and played in every Crusaders match that year. In 2010, he was selected for the New Zealand Maori where he impressed, scoring a try against Ireland. On 11 March 2011 he scored four tries in a game against the Brumbies, equaling the record for the most tries scored in a Super Rugby match. Maitland joined

in 2012, and won his first cap for Scotland at the start of the 2013 Six Nations Championship. After 3 years playing for Glasgow Warriors, Maitland moved to

, and in 2016 to

. During his time at Saracens he has won two Premiership titles in 2018 and 2019, scoring a try in the 2019 final. He also helped Saracens win the European Champions Cup in 2019, scoring a try in the final. He had previously missed Saracens' victory in the 2017 European Champions Cup final through injury. On 30 April 2013, Maitland was announced in the British and Irish Lions squad for the tour of Australia later that year. The tour marked a possible first encounter with cousin Quade Cooper in the test arena, having played one another before at Super Rugby level. The two never met in-game as Cooper was controversially left out of the extended Wallaby squad for the series, and Maitland never took to the field in the one test that he was on the bench. Maitland was not selected in the team to play the

Queensland Reds The Queensland Reds is the rugby union team for the Australian state of Queensland that competes in the Southern Hemisphere's Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996, they were a representative team selected from the rugby union club competition ...

mid-week game, in which Cooper captained the Reds for the first time. The two would go on to play against each other in November 2013, when Scotland lost to Australia in the end-of-year-internationals Maitland played in the

Rugby World Cup 2015 The 2015 Rugby World Cup was the eighth Rugby World Cup, the quadrennial rugby union world championship. The tournament was hosted by England from 18 September to 31 October. Of the 20 countries competing in the World Cup in 2011, there was onl ...

, in which Scotland reached the quarter-finals. He was controversially sin binned for a supposed deliberate knock-on in the quarter-finals. Scotland eventually went on to lose the match 35–34, ending their Rugby World Cup.

Personal life

Maitland qualifies for Scotland by his

Glaswegian The Glasgow dialect, popularly known as the Glasgow patter or Glaswegian, varies from Scottish English at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum to the local dialect of West Central Scots at the other. Therefore, the speech of many Glaswegia ...

grandparents who emigrated to New Zealand in the 1960s. Maitland said "My granddad always reminded me that I was part Scottish and that I should never forget that." On Maitland's maternal grandfather's side, Sean is also closely related to 'Smoking Joe' Stanley of New Zealand All Black fame in the mid 1980s–1990 on his Samoan side. In 2009, Maitland was a finalist in the Cleo New Zealand Bachelor of the Year competition. In November 2013, Maitland and three other Scottish rugby players were charged with assault following an incident outside a Glasgow takeaway shop in August, although these were ultimately dropped and Maitland faced no further action. In October 2020 Maitland was charged by the RFU for “conduct prejudicial to the interests of the Union” for breaking COVID-19 regulations whilst on duty with the Barbarians.

International tries

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maitland, Sean 1988 births Living people British & Irish Lions rugby union players from Scotland Canterbury rugby union players Crusaders (rugby union) players Glasgow Warriors players Māori All Blacks players New Zealand expatriate sportspeople in Scotland New Zealand people of Samoan descent New Zealand people of Scottish descent New Zealand rugby union players Ngāpuhi people People educated at Hamilton Boys' High School Rugby union players from Tokoroa Rugby union wings Scotland international rugby union players Stanley family (rugby) London Irish players