Brad Weber scoring a try for Hawke's Bay against Waikato in an unsuccessful Ranfurly Shield challenge in Hamilton in 2018. Three years earlier Weber scored three tries for Waikato as they took the shield off the Magpies in Napier. Photo / NZME
Brad Weber scoring a try for Hawke's Bay against Waikato in an unsuccessful Ranfurly Shield challenge in Hamilton in 2018. Three years earlier Weber scored three tries for Waikato as they took the shield off the Magpies in Napier. Photo / NZME
Super Rugby centurion and All Blacks Rugby World Cup hopeful Brad Weber is expected to be available for a possible last NPC season with the Hawke’s Bay Magpies if he misses selection for the cup tournament in France in September-October.
But’s not the ultimate wish for the Hawke’s Bay RugbyUnion, with chief executive Jay Campbell saying the 32-year-old Napier-born veteran of about 230 first-class matches, including 18 for the All Blacks, deserves to be in the World Cup squad, and should be there.
If so, it’s likely Weber, whose grandfather and father also both played rugby for Hawke’s Bay, has played his last match for the Magpies after 41 appearances since 2016.
Campbell was speaking after today’s announcement by Super Rugby franchise the Chiefs that Weber will head to Europe at the end of the year, effectively confirming a report from France in January that he’s heading to French Top 14 club Staide Francais Paris.
A member of the Napier Boys’ High School first XV for three years, Weber was first named in the Magpies as a 19-year-old for the NPC in 2011, the same year the diminutive halfback won a World junior rugby championship medal with the New Zealand Under 20 team, alongside fellow future Hawke’s Bay, Chiefs and All Blacks locking giant Brodie Retallick.
On the substitutes bench for one game without getting any Magpies’ game time, Weber then played for Otago, Waikato, the Māori All Blacks and a 2015 test for the All Blacks before making his Magpies debut, as a replacement, getting 19 minutes in a loss to Wellington at McLean Park in August 2016.
Famously, he scored three tries for Waikato when the Mooloos took the Ranfurly Shield off Hawke’s Bay in 2015.
But, mainly with other commitments intervening, he was not available for Hawke’s Bay when they lifted the Shield off Otago in 2020, and did not reappear in the Magpies’ jersey until last year.
In his last match for the union, also against Wellington, he scored a try in an NPC premiership quarter-final defeat in the capital last October.
The grandson of 1956-1958 Hawke’s Bay representative Graham Weber and son of 1988-1993 halfback Neil Weber, had shown plenty of aptitude for other sports.
Bonjour, Brad: The champion Hawke's Bay halfback may have played his last Magpies match. Photo / Kerry Marshall - Getty
In 2007, while at Napier Boys’ High School, where he had three years in the first XV, Weber was in the school’s 4x100m relay team when it was third at the New Zealand Secondary Schools track and field championships.
Two years later he was in a Hawke’s Bay Under 20 league side who played the Warriors Under 20s, on trial for a possible professional league career, but later in the year also played for Hawke’s Bay Under 18 at rugby, in a side that included future internationals Gareth Evans (All Blacks) and Tony Lamborn (United States), and Magpies and Highlanders star Richard Buckman.
In a statement released by the Chiefs, currently leading the Super Rugby Pacific competition, co-captain Weber said: “It is with a heavy heart that I confirm that this season will be my last at the Chiefs, a team that has meant so much to me and my family over the past 10 years.”
The franchise lauded Weber not only for his playing performance but also for his general spirit, including efforts to assist the Hawke’s Bay region in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle’s devastation, by making donations of $2 for every pass he makes in Super Rugby Pacific this season to the Hawke’s Bay Foundation flood relief fund.
He does so at an average of close to a pass per minute, currently in the top eight in the competition averaging 79.5 passes per 80 minutes, but throughout his career, he’s also had time to score plenty of tries, among a total of more than 350 points in first-class rugby.
While confirming his move, Weber is still focused on the job ahead with the Chiefs, saying: “The goal is to win a championship this season, so I look forward to going out with a bang,” said Weber.
With his grandfather and father both having been involved in coaching or team management, Campbell said, whatever happens, he doesn’t believe Weber’s association with the Magpies is over.
