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Chapter 1: What is Anton Segner's journey from Germany to the Blues?
Well, I guess this week on the Aotearoa Rugby Pod, you know pretty well. He's been in the New Zealand rugby system for some time. You've heard his story about coming from Germany, through Nelson College, through the Crusaders, up to the Blues. And now he's probably in the form of his life. He's playing exceptional footy for the Blues. We'd love to welcome to the show Anton Signer.
Thanks for coming on, mate. Yeah, thanks for having me. I was going through all of the stories on you, and there's a lot of Germany stuff. And you're obviously German and very proud of it, which is awesome. But what we thought we might focus on a little bit more
as i suppose your approach to rugby because what we've seen in the last little while from you has been really impressive 2026 has been you know to some degree a breakout year for you so much more game time and and so impressive in that game time what what's changed for you
I think that game time plays a big role to be honest. I think you can do, and I think Djibba can agree with me here, that you can do as much training as you want as a rugby player. At the end of the day, actually playing rugby is the best training you can do for it. So yeah, time in the seed and game time under my belt has helped me heaps for sure.
Growing into my body and getting used to playing with my current body as well, I feel really comfortable. And, yeah, just making those connections with the boys on the field too makes a huge difference too. You know, learning how everyone plays and that sort of helps with your running lines a little bit and just getting used to being on the field with the boys.
And, yeah, at the end of the day, I'm just enjoying myself and that's why I play the game. So, yeah, I think that's the main reason as to why it's going good for me at the moment.
With the extra minutes, do you feel like as you get more experience, the game almost slows down, decision making becomes a bit easier? Have you felt that this season?
Yeah, for sure. I didn't feel it at the start of the season, just because I was so, yeah, as you say, when the game time isn't quite there, you're so almost tunnel vision in terms of your job, but then
as you get more game time I think your perspective sort of widens and things slow down a bit which makes the decision making easier although technically you don't have more time it feels like you've got more time because you've seen the pictures before and you see pictures earlier as well so whether it's at the breakdown and you watch how someone lands in a specific way then you know okay so he's going to land there so I need to be there if I want to have a crack at the ball or
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Chapter 2: How has Anton Segner transformed his game in Super Rugby?
Yeah, for sure. Clarity and a certain sense of calmness too, because you know that you've been in that situation before and you've seen all these little pictures before, these little cues. And I think a lot of it, to be honest, happens in the subconscious. I think your brain picks up certain images and certain pictures subconsciously. So then when you see it over and over, you know what to do.
Especially ball carrying, you lead in terms of the loosies in New Zealand in particular, in terms of the dominance of your carry. It just looks like you've had a bit of a conviction like, oh, it's on for me to have a crack here. And you've actually gone over the top of players and then obviously have the finesse skills still as well.
I think for me, that's a big confidence thing. I've put on a couple of kilos since last year. So that definitely helped me in terms of my dominant, not just when carrying, but in contact in general. But it's also been a huge work on for me over the last few years. And it's not something that has just magically appeared this year.
I've worked on it with a few other boys as well, with Sam Derry and a few other boys, just making sure that we get over the gain line, whether it's with footwork or, again, seeing pictures and taking the space at the end of the day. And then the finesse skills is, again, I think you read defenders' body shapes and you see what they're doing and then you make a decision based off that.
So, yeah, I think, again, it's just comfortable being out there and backing yourself.
You've put on kilos, but you look physically bigger.
I think the time off after last year helped a lot during that. I remember coming back from Germany because I had a big seven-week break between NPC and the start of Super OP pre-season. The time off in Germany really helped me because it wasn't so much the gym work that I was doing over there, but I think just giving my body enough time to fully reset and get back to 100% was huge for me.
And a huge learning that I took out of that is that how important recovery really is, both physically and mentally, because when I came back into the Super Rugby environment, I didn't just feel physically refreshed, I felt mentally refreshed as well and looking forward to playing rugby again and playing rugby with the boys. That was big for me.
But then I also think some of it plays into just naturally the age that I'm at now. I think, yeah, I'm 24 now. So I think as that sort of time you make one last big push and your body fills out naturally a bit more. And I've definitely felt that over the last year or so.
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Chapter 3: What insights does Anton Segner share about game experience and decision-making?
I don't know if you saw the videos and stuff of when he came over, but yeah, it meant a lot to me to see how much it meant to him, what I'm doing over here.
Are you quite an independent person? I mean, you would have had to have been from a young age.
I definitely think I ever mean coming over here at 15 years of age by myself although at the time I think I was sort of naive to a lot of stuff around what it actually meant to go to the other side of the world to pursue this dream but then at the same time no one knew that it was going to play out like this because initially it was just supposed to be a six months exchange at Nelson College and then
it's played out the way it has now. But yeah, if someone would have told me that in a couple of years time, you'd be playing for the Blues just a couple of years, just what, nine years later now. Yeah, I think you're a crazy man.
Who was the idol? Who were the people that you idolized when you watched the All Blacks as a youngster?
Richard McCaw is definitely the first name that comes to mind. And then a few others, Kieran Reid after him and Adi Savia is still someone that I'm hugely impressed by the way he carries himself and the way he plays the game is pretty impressive.
If you look at Rick Owen, I suppose Kieran and Adi, there must be something that all three of them show you or want you to be similar to?
their self-confidence in terms of knowing what they're capable of and playing to those capabilities and having full belief in that. Like Richie McCaw, I think he always knew what he was capable of and I think the consistency is a big one as well. I mean, you see so many players play well for X amount of time. And then they have downfalls, which everyone has, I guess.
But the more that you're able to minimize those sort of down periods, the better. And yeah, from memory, I think Richard McCall, Kieran Reid, Adi Savia, they didn't really have many of those. So that's pretty impressive, yeah.
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Chapter 4: How does Anton Segner maintain his physical fitness and weight?
Helped me hugely and I've actually had a few good catch-ups with Paddy about it because although it is a different level, there's a lot of learnings that we can take from the Auckland NPC season into any other campaign that we're a part of because it's cliche for a reason that you learn from the lows. And that was definitely a low was the Auckland season. It was quite disappointing.
But yes, sitting down with a few of the people from Auckland Rugby after the season, we look back and the amount of learnings that we took out of that season was massive for me. On a personal note, being a leader, it taught me that I have to trust and sort of lean on the leaders around me a lot more. I tried to take everything on my shoulders and run with it and fix it all myself.
But yeah, in the Auckland team as well, I had guys like Angus Tarvell, Josh Berry, Josh Fusitua that I could have leaned on. But yeah, I sort of tried to take it all on myself and fix it all myself. And that obviously isn't the way to go about it. But yeah, definitely better for it. And like I say, it was very stressful times.
But then at the end of the season, when you get a time to sort of sit back and reflect on it, that's when you take all those learnings in.
So what does it look like practically through the week then? You know, you find out on a Monday you're going to be captain. What does that change from Monday through Friday?
Early on in the week I try to not let it play on my mind too much because early on I like to make sure that I've got all of my things in place in order to nail the game. So yeah, Monday, Tuesday was all about myself, making sure that I know what my role is, what I want out of the game for myself. And then later on during the week you sort of get a feel of where the group is at.
You obviously want to feel for that the whole way throughout but at the start you obviously need to put yourself first and make sure that you nail yourself because as I say when you play well yourself that's half the job done but then yeah it's just about getting a feel for the group and connecting with the leaders around you as well and making sure that they're all over their stuff talking to Derry about the line outs and Stevie around how he wants to play the game and
what he feels like the boys need more of or sort of the focus areas that we need to focus on and then come game day just make sure that we're in the right mindset because by then all the clarity and stuff is done and then it's just about getting into the right frame of mind in order to play the game and We always knew that it was going to be war against the Chiefs, especially down there.
I thought we started off well, had a big defensive set straight after halftime too, and then a couple of moments didn't go our way and everything went the Chiefs' way. Finals footy is a different beast, so we needed to make sure they were on top of it.
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