Thorn in Crusader colours

Brad Thorn will play for the Crusaders in next year's Super 12, replacing luckless All Black Ben Blair, who will miss the entire season recovering from shoulder surgery.

Thorn, who left an outstanding rugby league career with the Brisbane Broncos and the Kangaroos to chase his boyhood dream of playing for the All Blacks, played for Canterbury last year.

He passed up a chance to play for the All Blacks at the end of last season and disappeared back to Brisbane, where he opted to have a year away from the rigours of top football.

Last weekend it was announced Thorn would return to Canterbury for next year's NPC, but that he had been added to the draft for the 2003 Super 12 campaign.

Acting New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive Steve Tew said yesterday that Thorn had gone into the Super 12 draft at the weekend, but no other franchise had shown an interest in him.

"There had been a fair amount of publicity about him returning to New Zealand so I'm sure everyone was aware he was in the draft," Tew said.

Canterbury grabbed the powerful 27-year-old who started as a loose forward last year but ended up playing as a lock in the NPC.

He and former Canterbury captain Todd Blackadder played in each game as the team's locking combination and played a major role in helping defend the Ranfurly Shield.

Dunedin-born Thorn has signed a two-year contract with Canterbury and the NZRFU to play for the Crusaders and Canterbury.

Crusaders coach Robbie Deans said last night he was thrilled to have Thorn back.

"He gives us depth in an important position. We have some history of injury with our locks."

Deans said he was happy with the 16-12 forward-back split of the squad.

"In the past we haven't always used that last back and we felt it was more important to cover lock ... we didn't get him to cover fullback," he said.

Deans said Thorn still had plenty of room for development as a rugby player.

"He's got a lot of work to do but he's more settled now that he's had a break away from the game and that he's married. He enjoys Christchurch and he's looking to buy a house.

"He had a lot of habits from league that we had to change like entering the point of contact and protecting the ball, but he was starting to do that at the end of his first season."



Deans said he first heard on the All Blacks tour last month that Thorn was interested in coming back to Canterbury, but at that point there was not an opportunity for him to join the Crusaders.

"It was just unfortunate that Ben got injured and it opened the way for Brad," he said.

He confirmed that Thorn started his negotiations with the NZRFU last month while Tew was in Europe with the All Blacks.

"They started long before Ben Blair was injured against Wales. He [Thorn] was made very aware, and agreed, that he would be available in the draft replacement pool," Tew said.

"His preference clearly was to play at home [Christchurch] but if given an opportunity to play in Super 12, most players are happy to grab it."

Thorn is on his honeymoon in Italy.

- NZPA