Rugby: Frontrower wins player of the year

Mason Kean wants to play for NZ under-20s.

Earlier this season MAC premier rugby team head coach Anthony Morley labelled Mason Kean the best frontrower to come off the Hastings Boys' High School production line since Ben Tameifuna.

Kean, 19, enhanced the label by winning this year's Tui-Hawke's Bay Today Club Rugby Player of the Year award.

"It's mean to win this in my first season of premier rugby," Kean said during a spell at yesterday's second day of the Hawke's Bay Magpies three-day pre-season camp in Taupo.

"While you've got to turn up and do the work to win, I was fortunate to have a good team behind me going full tilt. I have to give a big shout out to the MAC team, which had some good heads in the forward pack and some good coaches in Anthony [Morley] and Len Huia."

"Our first round was pretty good," Kean said referring to MAC's five wins from nine games during the Nash Cup competition.

Another indication of Kean's potential to match the feats of former New Zealand under-20s and Chiefs prop Tameifuna is the fact he is likely to finish 2015 having played for three Hawke's Bay rep teams; the Magpies, the Saracens and the under-19s. Kean had 15 minutes for the Magpies in last week's Ranfurly Shield defence against Mid Canterbury and was on the bench for the previous week's defence against Horowhenua-Kapiti but didn't have the collar slipped off him.

"The under-19s will be my main priority because that's where the national selectors will be looking for New Zealand's under-20 team players for next year, which is my major goal for the next two seasons," Kean explained.

"Playing for the Saracens will give me the physicality required to be a force at under-20 level."

Like Tameifuna, a 2011 New Zealand Under-20 world champion and former New Zealand Secondary Schools rep, Kean can play all three frontrow positions.

But while Tameifuna prefers the tighthead role, Kean favours the loosehead job.

"I played a bit at tighthead for MAC at the weekend. Being versatile will improve my chances of higher honours," Kean said.

A former Hawke's Bay under-14 and under-18 rep (injuries prevented him from playing for the under-16s), Kean, ranked the Napier Old Boys Marist pack as the toughest he came up against in club play this season and their tighthead, new Magpie Jarvy Aoake, as the best tighthead he propped against. Although he didn't make the Magpies ITM Cup squad he was invited to Taupo to cover for the absence of Maori All Black and Highlanders prop Brendon Edmonds who is having his mandatory two-week holiday after the Maori team's campaign.

"I'm stuffed. We've been doing a lot of running and a lot of everything else."

He is on the hunt for part-time work after stacking shelves at Flaxmere's New World and working as a carpet and pest control technician for Able Clean & Restoration before Magpies commitments became the priority.

"My long-term goal is to become a policeman. But we will see where rugby takes me first," Kean said.

This award is further proof rugby may delay his plans to join the police force for the next decade at least.