Sam Beard (born 3 May 1990 in

Timaru Timaru (; ) is a port city in the southern Canterbury Region of New Zealand, located southwest of Christchurch and about northeast of Dunedin on the eastern Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast of the South Island. The Timaru urban area is home to peo ...

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 ...

) is a

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 ...

footballer. His regular playing position is

Centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

Career

Beard moved to Christchurch as a young player to pursue a career in rugby and kicked off matters in earnest with Burnside's championship-winning team. He was then called up to the provincial Canterbury B team and, after an impressive season in which he was named player of the year, was brought into the Crusader Knights, the development squad of

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 ...

giants

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

Bay of Plenty The Bay of Plenty () is a large bight (geography), bight along the northern coast of New Zealand's North Island. It stretches from the Coromandel Peninsula in the west to Cape Runaway in the east. Called ''Te Moana-a-Toitehuatahi'' (the Ocean ...

then offered the midfielder the next step on the provincial ladder, where he played out his first season before being approached in 2013 to join

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

in Scotland. Having made his initial appearances for the team from the replacements' bench, Beard started a match for the first time on 28 February 2014, during which he ran in Edinburgh's second try in a victory over

Ospreys The osprey (; ''Pandion haliaetus''), historically known as sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor, reaching more than in length and a wingspan of . It is ...

. Beard was contracted to Edinburgh until 2016, having signed a contract extension at the end of his first season with the club. On 22 February 2016, Beard signed a two-year deal with Welsh region the Dragons (rugby union), Dragons from the 2016–17 season. He was released by the Dragons (rugby union), Dragons at the end of the 2017–18 season.

Rugby Statistics

References

Sam Beard is nephew of John Haggart

External links

Edinburgh profileDragons Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beard, Sam 1990 births Living people Crusaders (rugby union) players Dragons RFC players Edinburgh Rugby players New Zealand expatriate rugby union players in Scotland Expatriate rugby union players in the United States New Zealand expatriate rugby union players in Wales New England Free Jacks players New Zealand expatriate sportspeople in the United States Rugby union centres Rugby union players from Timaru New Zealand rugby union players South Canterbury rugby union players Bay of Plenty rugby union players