Bryn Desmond Hall (born 3 February 1992) is a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

player who currently plays as a halfback for Kubota Spears Funabashi Tokyo Bay in the Japan Rugby League One. He previously played for in New Zealand's domestic

Bunnings NPC Bunnings Group Limited, trading as Bunnings Warehouse or Bunnings, is an Australian hardware and garden centre chain. The chain has been owned by Wesfarmers since 1994, and has stores in Australia and New Zealand. Bunnings was founded in Pert ...

competition and the in

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

Early career

Born and raised in Auckland, he was educated at St Peter's College where he played first XV rugby, captaining them in his senior year in 2010. After graduation, he went on to play club rugby for Northcote in North Harbour's club rugby competition.

Senior career

Hall broke into the North Harbour team during the

2012 ITM Cup 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

while aged just 20. He played 9 times for the men from Auckland's North Shore and scored 35 points which included 3 tries as they finished bottom the Championship log with just 1 win in 10 games.

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

saw him establish himself as the province's first choice halfback, playing in all 10 of their games during the season as they once again finished in last place.

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saw some improvement from Harbour as they finished 5th out of 7 teams in the ITM Cup Championship and Hall continued to be first pick in the number 9 jersey, playing 9 times. He was named as team captain and was an ever present in

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as Harbour once again finished in 5th place, just outside the promotion play-off places. The arrival of veteran halfback, Chris Smylie for the 2016 season provided Hall will some stiff competition for a starting place for the first time in several years, however, he rose to the challenge, playing in all 12 of Harbour's matches, starting 8 times as they earned promotion to the Mitre 10 Cup Premiership for 2017 with an upset victory away to in the Championship final.

Super Rugby

Strong performances in an under-performing North Harbour side in 2012 brought him to the attention of local Super Rugby franchise, the who named him in their squad for the

2013 Super Rugby season The 2013 Super Rugby season was the third season of the new 15-team format for the Super Rugby competition involving teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The tournament was won by the Chiefs, who defeated the Canberra-based Brumbi ...

. He made his Super Rugby debut in Round 2 of the season, coming on as a 63rd minute replacement in the 34–15 win over the Crusaders at

Eden Park Eden Park is a sports venue in Auckland, New Zealand. It is located three kilometres southwest of the Auckland CBD, on the boundary between the suburbs of Mount Eden and Kingsland. The main stadium has a nominal capacity of 50,000, and is s ...

, however that would turn out to be his only appearance for the year as a broken jaw and glandular fever ensured that he found himself third in the pecking order for the halfback jersey behind All Black

Piri Weepu Piri Awahou Tihou Weepu (born 7 September 1983) is a retired New Zealand rugby union player. Weepu played most recently for Wairarapa Bush in the Heartland Championship. Generally Weepu played as a half-back but also played at first five-eig ...

and 's Jamison Gibson-Park. In

, he earned a lot more game time and had nailed down the starting halfback spot for the Blues by the end of the season, dislodging the far more experienced Weepu. However, all the momentum he'd built up through 2014 was lost when a broken foot picked up playing club rugby forced him to miss the entire 2015 campaign, but, fully fit in

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, new head-coach

Tana Umaga Jonathan Ionatana Falefasa Umaga (; ; born 27 May 1973) is a New Zealand former rugby union footballer and former captain of the national team, the All Blacks. He is head coach of Moana Pasifika in the Super Rugby competition. He was granted ...

made him the franchise's first choice number 9 once more and he went on to play in all 15 of their matches during a slightly disappointing season which ended with them in 11th place in the overall standings. In June 2016, it was announced that Hall would move south to join the

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-based Crusaders for

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where he would compete with former New Zealand under-20 international

Mitchell Drummond Mitchell David Drummond (born 15 February 1994) is a New Zealand rugby union player who currently plays as a halfback for in the Bunnings NPC and the in the Super Rugby competition. Early career Born and raised in Nelson in the South Isla ...

for a starting berth in the wake of the departure of the experienced Andy Ellis.

International

Hall was a New Zealand Schools representative in 2010 and then along with future Blues team-mate Steve Luatua, went on to co-captain the New Zealand Under-20 side which finished as runner-up in the 2012 IRB Junior World Championship in South Africa.

Career honours

North Harbour * Mitre 10 Cup Championship –

Super Rugby statistics

Personal life

Hall is a New Zealander of Māori descent (

Ngāti Ranginui Ngāti Ranginui is a Māori iwi (tribe) in Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. Its rohe (tribal area) extends from Waihi in the north, to the Kaimai Range in the west, to south of Te Puke in the south, and to Tauranga in the east. The rohe does not ext ...

descent).

Controversy

Hall while on Sky Sports show "Kick off" referred to fellow Crusader teammate Jack Goodhue as "a Jew" for attempting to get a women's magazine to pay for his wedding. These comments were labelled as "casual racism" by the BSA but the slur was not serious enough to warrant a breach of broadcasting standards

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Bryn 1992 births Living people People educated at St Peter's College, Auckland New Zealand rugby union players Blues (Super Rugby) players North Harbour rugby union players Rugby union scrum-halves Rugby union players from Auckland Crusaders (rugby union) players Shizuoka Blue Revs players New Zealand expatriate rugby union players in Japan Māori All Blacks players Ngāti Ranginui people Kubota Spears Funabashi Tokyo Bay players