Michael Allardice (born 19 October 1991) 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

lock Lock(s) or Locked may refer to: Common meanings *Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance *Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainme ...

for in New Zealand's domestic

Mitre 10 Cup The mitre (Commonwealth English) or miter (American English; see spelling differences; both pronounced ; ) is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of bishops and certain abbots in traditional Christianity. Mi ...

and the in the international

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 ...

competition.

Early career

Born in the rural town of

Taihape Taihape is in the Rangitikei District of the North Island of New Zealand. It serves a large rural community. New Zealand State Highway 1, State Highway 1, which runs North to South through the centre of the North Island, passes through the town ...

in the centre of New Zealand's north island in the Manawatū-Whanganui region, he moved to the area's biggest town,

Palmerston North Palmerston North (; , colloquially known as Palmerston or Palmy) is a city in the North Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Manawatū-Whanganui region. Located in the eastern Manawatū Plains, the city is near the north bank of the Manaw ...

for school and attended

Palmerston North Boys' High School Palmerston North Boys' High School is a secondary Day school, day and Boarding school, boarding school for boys founded in 1902. It is located in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Location Palmerston North Boys' High School has a campus located on ...

where he played first XV rugby. Upon graduation, he moved south to

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

to study for a Bachelor of Commerce degree, majoring in marketing and business management at the

University of Canterbury The University of Canterbury (UC; ; postnominal abbreviation ''Cantuar.'' or ''Cant.'' for ''Cantuariensis'', the Latin name for Canterbury) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was founded in 1873 as Canterbur ...

which he completed in 3 years.

Senior career

While still studying in Christchurch, Allardice made 1 appearance for 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 ...

, a 33–11 win over . In 2013 after completing his university studies he headed north to join the Hawke's Bay Magpies. He played every game for the Magpies as they reached the final of the

ITM Cup ITM may stand for: Education * ITM Law School, one of the professional graduate schools of ITM University * ITM-IFM, Mumbai, India * Institut Teknologi Mara, a public university in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia * Institute for Information, Tel ...

championship before losing narrowly to . He continued to be a first choice lock in

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

, playing all 12 of the Magpies' games as they again lost in the Championship final, this time to . Once more he was an ever-present in

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

as Hawke's Bay finally won promotion to the Premiership with a 26–25 victory over in the final. The 2016 New Zealand domestic season was a write-off for both him and his team, as injury meant he was ruled out of the entire campaign and the Magpies' stay in the Mitre 10 Cup Premiership proved to be a brief one as they were relegated to the Championship for 2017 after recording only 2 wins all season.

Super Rugby

A pre-season training stint with the ahead of the

2014 Super Rugby season The 2014 Super Rugby season is the fourth season of the 15-team format for the Super Rugby competition involving teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. For sponsorship reasons, this competition is known as Asteron Life Super Rugby ...

opened up some doors for him in the franchise and he was subsequently named in their squad for

. Although injury curtailed his debut season prematurely, he still managed to make 7 appearances which were followed up by 10 more in

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

as the reached the competition's semi-final stage before going down to New Zealand rivals and eventual competition winners, the . Despite, injury problems in the latter half of 2016, he was retained in the squad for the

2017 Super Rugby season The 2017 Super Rugby season was the 22nd season of Super Rugby, an annual rugby union competition organised by SANZAAR between teams from Argentina, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa. It was the second season featuring an expanded ...

. In August 2016, Allardice made headlines in New Zealand for alleged homophobic abuse of a gay couple during a post season team bonding at a pub and public swimming facility at Okoroire Hot Springs near Tirau in the Waikato. He later made a public apology. The incident came on the heels of a study that found more young Kiwi men hide their sexuality on the playing field than in any other country. In 2019, Allardice resigned with the Chiefs.

International

Allardice was a New Zealand Schools representative in 2009 and also turned out for New Zealand Universities during his time at the University of Canterbury.

Career Honours

Canterbury * Mitre 10 Cup Premiership -

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

Hawke's Bay * Mitre 10 Cup Championship -

Super Rugby Statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allardice, Michael 1991 births Living people New Zealand rugby union players Rugby union locks Chiefs (Super Rugby) players Canterbury rugby union players Hawke's Bay rugby union players People educated at Palmerston North Boys' High School University of Canterbury alumni Toyota Verblitz players Rugby union players from Manawatū-Whanganui New Zealand expatriate rugby union players in Japan NTT DoCoMo Red Hurricanes Osaka players