{"id":20539,"date":"2025-04-15T00:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T00:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/20539\/"},"modified":"2025-04-15T00:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T00:07:09","slug":"all-blacks-star-richie-mounga-makes-british-irish-lions-revelation-planet-rugby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/20539\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks star Richie Mo&#8217;unga makes British &#038; Irish Lions revelation : Planet Rugby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Richie Mo\u2019unga could be in line to face the British and Irish Lions on Australian soil later this year after reportedly being invited to feature for the ANZAC team.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The All Blacks star, who is currently playing for Toshiba Brave Lupus in Japan Rugby League One, has not played for New Zealand since the 2023 Rugby World Cup final.<\/p>\n<p>Speculation about a return home to play under new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetrugby.com\/team\/new-zealand\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">All Blacks<\/a> coach Scott Robertson has been frequent, but Mo\u2019unga remains committed to playing for the Brave Lupus.<\/p>\n<p>ANZAC side invite<\/p>\n<p>However, a brief return does look on the cards as according to a\u00a0<a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbyjp.com\/post\/exclusive-richie-mo-unga-to-join-anzac-team-to-play-the-lions\" target=\"_blank\">RugbyJP.com<\/a>\u00a0report, the classy fly-half has been invited to play for an ANZAC side against the touring\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetrugby.com\/category\/british-and-irish-lions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The game will take place at Adelaide Oval on July 12 and the report says that Mo\u2019unga was asked about his availability by the co-head coach of\u00a0Toyota Verblitz, Ian Foster.<\/p>\n<p>It states that former All Blacks scrum-half Aaron Smith and former\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetrugby.com\/team\/australia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wallabies<\/a> skipper Michael Hooper are also expected to feature for the trans-Tasman team in the fixture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, Foz has spoken to me about the game,\u201d the former Crusaders star has revealed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetrugby.com\/news\/all-blacks-coach-reveals-sam-whitelocks-words-of-advice-and-how-it-gave-him-some-direction-in-his-career\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>All Blacks coach reveals Sam Whitelock\u2019s words of advice and how it gave him \u2018some direction\u2019 in his career<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really interested in playing, it\u2019s with my agents now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mo\u2019unga, who was recently linked with an international switch to Tonga, is very much in demand and admits the next step regarding the ANZAC approach is to talk to his club.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll have to ask Toshiba for permission to play next,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n<p>Exciting prospect<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI miss the big Test match setting, the big arenas. This will be the closest I\u2019ll get to it while I\u2019m in Japan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mo\u2019unga has played a pivotal role at Toshiba Brave Lupus since he arrived at the club, helping them lift the Japan Rugby League One title last season in front of 56,000 fans.<\/p>\n<p>They currently sit third in the standings this season on 56 points after 15 matches with Kubota Spears (57) in second position as Saitama Wild Knights lead the table on 60.<\/p>\n<p><b>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetrugby.com\/news\/world-rugby-may-alter-another-law-after-clearly-wrong-decision-in-super-rugby-pacific-clash\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Rugby may alter ANOTHER law after \u2018clearly wrong\u2019 decision in Super Rugby Pacific clash<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richie Mo\u2019unga could be in line to face the British and Irish Lions on Australian soil later this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[186,5313,225,522,704,12,13329,4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-20539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-british-and-irish-lions","10":"tag-home-page","11":"tag-international","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-richie-mo","15":"tag-rugby","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114339069736344908","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}