{"id":560746,"date":"2025-11-10T04:40:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T04:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/560746\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T04:40:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T04:40:20","slug":"scott-hansen-full-of-praise-for-22-year-old-all-black-loose-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/560746\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Hansen full of praise for 22-year-old All Black loose forward"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The emergence of Hurricanes<\/a> and All Black loose-forward Peter Lakai<\/a> has been a bright spot in this year\u2019s end-of-year Grand Slam tour, according to assistant coach Scott Hansen.<\/p>\n

The St Pat\u2019s Silverstream graduate first burst onto the scene in 2022 when he was selected for the New Zealand<\/a> U20\u2019s, before becoming the co-captain f0r the same side in 2023 ahead of the U20 World Championship.<\/p>\n

He then made his debut for the Hurricanes in 2023 against the Reds, before making the All Blacks<\/a> the following year.<\/p>\n

Lakai, who has now played seven Tests for the All Blacks, has started the last three games for Robertson\u2019s side, after making his debut on last year\u2019s end-of-year tour against Japan<\/a> in October.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s taken some time for the Hurricanes loose-forward to solidify his spot in an All Black jersey, but after the last couple of performances in Chicago and Edinburgh, Robertson will find it tough to drop Lakai ahead of England<\/a> at Twickenham and Wales<\/a> in Cardiff.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old led the tackle count in the game at Murrayfield against Scotland<\/a> with 21, and won the All Blacks two turnovers at the breakdown during the 80 minutes.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Jason Pine on\u00a0Newstalk ZB\u2019s Weekend Sport\u00a0show, Hansen explained that some of Lakai\u2019s qualities are \u201cuncoachable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, this has been so pleasing, isn\u2019t it, he\u2019s such a mature young man and he\u2019s a great presence around his game,\u201d Hansen told Pine.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a natural baller, the way he can present himself onto the ball, how he adjusts the line as a ball carrier he\u2019s got some of those qualities, basically, that are uncoachable.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Head-to-Head <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last 5 Meetings<\/p>\n

Average Points scored<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The All Blacks assistant coach also believes that his prowess at the breakdown is one of his biggest strengths, which only seem to be getting better.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just a beautiful rugby player, a fantastic young man, defensively he was on the ball, his timing at the breakdown, his understanding and went and how to put pressure on the ball tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed that because we needed the discipline from him there, we didn\u2019t always get it right as a team, but Peter\u2019s a young man that continues to grow his game each week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The emergence of Hurricanes and All Black loose-forward Peter Lakai has been a bright spot in this year\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-560746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115523565985347212","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560746","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=560746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}