McFarland celebrates Super 12 call-up
January 26, 2000

Slade McFarland was celebrating in Wales last night after the Canterbury Crusaders confirmed they had requested permission to sign him to replace injured hooker Matt Sexton for the Super 12 season.

McFarland, who is playing for lowly Dunvant in the Welsh-Scottish league, was surprisingly left out of the Super 12 squads named last year. In 1999 whilst playing for the Blues he was voted supporters' player of the year but Blues coach Gordon Hunter chose David Heaps and Keven Mealamu as his hookers for 2000. It was widely thought that he had been the victim of parochialism because his place amongst the ten best hookers in New Zealand was supposedly clear.

As he waits for confirmation of the move McFarland said, "I feel like a bit of a yo-yo. A real jet-setter. I never know which side of the world I'm going to end up on. It's a great opportunity for me and I'll give the Crusaders 100 per cent."

On the subject of his original omission he said, "I was pretty disappointed at missing out originally although I had a feeling because the players are usually told they're in the week before it is announced. To be honest I don't really know what went wrong, but that's the way it goes these days."


Sexton has been ruled out of the competition by a knee injury suffered in training.

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