NZ's latest World Rugby Hall of Fame inductees revealed

Former All Blacks halfback Chris Laidlaw and rugby sevens star D.J. Forbes are the latest Kiwis to be inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame.

The duo join sevens gold medal winner Emilee Cherry (Australia), Scotland veteran Donna Kennedy and Italian great Sergio Parisse, who will all be officially inducted at the World Rugby awards in Monaco next week.

Forbes was the fulcrum of one of the most successful New Zealand sides for more than a decade. Having made his World Rugby Sevens Series debut in Wellington in February 2006, Forbes and his distinctive beard were a mainstay on the circuit until he hung up his playing boots in May 2017.

Along the way he appeared in 89 series tournaments – playing 512 matches on the circuit – scoring 153 tries and amassing a shedload of medals. In total, Forbes won 26 tournaments, six overall series titles, one Commonwealth Games gold medal in 2010, silver in 2014 and a Rugby World Cup Sevens title in 2013.

He was also named World Rugby Men’s Sevens Player of the Year in 2008, following a campaign in which he scored 26 tries and led New Zealand to six tournament victories en route to their eighth series title.

Forbes achieved most of that as New Zealand captain, wearing the armband between 2006-15, receiving the New Zealand Sevens Player of the Year a record four times and accepting the NZRPA Kirk Award in 2017 for his outstanding contribution as a player advocate for the game, only adds to his legend.

One of the greatest halfbacks to ever pull on an All Black number nine jersey, Laidlaw has gone on to have an influential and varied career outside of the game. After he retired from rugby in 1970, he went on to enjoy a long and distinguished career as a diplomat, politician and broadcaster.

Laidlaw was called into the New Zealand squad and made his test debut for the All Blacks at the age of 19, on their 1963-64 tour of the UK, France and Canada. Included on the trip primarily as an understudy to Kevin Briscoe, he did enough to earn a start for the test against Les Bleus, landing a drop goal in a 12-3 victory at Stade Colombes in 1964.

It was the start of a six-and-a-half-year international career in which he made the scrum-half position his own. In total, Laidlaw played 20 tests for the All Blacks, captaining them against Australia in 1968 and playing in a further 37 tour and non-cap matches.

Across that time, his only test defeats in the famous black jersey came at the hands of South Africa. Even then, Laidlaw emerged victorious from four of his seven encounters with the Springboks. It was in Port Elizabeth that Laidlaw played his final test for the All Blacks. By then, he had become a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, Oxford and captained Oxford University to victory against the touring Springboks.

His involvement wouldn’t end there. He became captain-coach of the Lyon team in France, the first foreign international to play such a role. As a diplomat in the Pacific he coached both Fiji and Samoa and in New Zealand he became a board member of the Hurricanes franchise.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission