Jamison Gibson-Park: From failed out-half to world-class nine

“Yeah, I was a failed out-half. I just didn’t grow so I didn’t have much of a choice, but up until I was 13 I played out-half. You don’t really start playing positions until you’re ten so I had a few years there, yeah.”

Jamison Gibson-Park during the Leinster Captain’s Run at Croke Park. Pic: ©INPHO/Laszlo Geczo.

Jamison Gibson-Park was ten years old when he moved from the Great Barrier Island, a four-hour ferry ride from Auckland on the tip of New Zealand’s North Island, to the city of Gisborne, over 500km away on the east coast.

Ten is the age when young rugby players in his native country are first corralled into defined positions of play, and the man who would become a world-class scrum-half started out a step removed from it, with a No.10 on his back.