A homecoming in Wellington
Roger Randle is going back to the Hurricanes. Twenty-nine years after he last pulled on the jersey.
The Super Rugby Pacific champions confirmed this morning that the former All Blacks wing joins Clark Laidlaw’s staff ahead of the 2027 season, taking charge of the attacking portfolio. He arrives from the Chiefs, where he started as a technical advisor in 2018 and moved into a full-time coaching role a year later. In Wellington he will work alongside assistants Cory Jane and Jamie Mackintosh.
“To come back home to the Hurricanes is something my whanau and I are looking forward to, and I can’t wait to get started at the club,” Randle said.
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A CV built on tries
Randle played only five games for the Hurricanes, between 1996 and 1997, before spending the rest of his Super Rugby career at the Chiefs through until 2003. The provincial record is heavier. Hawke’s Bay, the Central Vikings, then Waikato, where he won the 2006 Air New Zealand Cup and featured throughout the province’s three-year Ranfurly Shield tenure from 1997 to 2000. He crossed for 141 tries in 189 first-class appearances in New Zealand.
Two All Blacks caps followed in 2001. Add eight Maori All Blacks appearances, two Commonwealth Games golds and the 2001 Sevens World Cup title with the New Zealand sevens side, and the playing career stands up on its own. The coaching one has now run two decades, taking in the New Zealand Barbarians, Waikato, Japan Sevens, the Maori All Blacks and the Chiefs.
Laidlaw made no secret of what drew him. “We’ve been an admirer of the Chiefs’ attack for a number of years. We know how hard it was to go up against them over the past few years,” the Hurricanes head coach said, calling the appointment “hugely important”.
The Munster chapter
The 52-year-old lands in Wellington in October after a bruising year. Munster appointed him as their attack coach earlier in 2026, then reversed the decision following a backlash from supporters on social media.
That reversal traced back to a historic rape allegation dating from 1997, when Randle was in Durban with the Hurricanes for a match against the Sharks. He has always denied it. The charge was eventually dropped after the complainant withdrew it, although she stood by her account.
Three independent members of Munster’s professional game board, former players Billy Holland, Mick O’Driscoll and Killian Keane, resigned over the affair. Head coach Clayton McMillan, who worked with Randle at the Chiefs, said afterwards that he was disappointed the province had backed down.
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