Jordie Barrett: 'I was gutted when South Africa left Super Rugby'

The All Blacks centre has signed a short-term deal with Leinster in the United Rugby Championship, a league which contains the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers.

Those South African sides have been featuring in the URC since 2021 after they were ousted from the southern hemisphere tournament a year earlier.

Barrett could get the chance to reunite with some old foes while in Ireland, however, as he spends the next six months of his career at the Dublin outfit.

Leo Cullen's men take on the Stormers in January before they head on their South African tour in March, where they will face the Bulls and Sharks.

"I'm fully aware of the prowess and power game the South African teams had. They were obviously in the Super Rugby competition that I was a part of for a number of years," he told the media on Tuesday.

"For three or four years, I had the luxury of heading up to South Africa and doing a tour for two or three weeks, and they're such formidable outfits.

"They are a great acquisition to the URC. I was gutted when they left Super Rugby. I certainly missed that aspect.

"I was gutted when I was playing for the Hurricanes and they left, so it will be nice to play those teams again."

While Barrett will once again familiarise himself with the South African teams, the All Blacks star is also trying to get to grips with the Leinster system.

The 27-year-old made a fine start to his brief stay in Dublin by making a try-scoring debut in the Champions Cup and will hope to build on that when Leo Cullen's men face Clermont Auvergne this weekend.

It is not always easy to settle quickly into new surroundings but the signs are promising so far, something which Barrett credits to Leinster's approach.

"I guess just the simplicity of their weeks and basics and players and coaches, just play rugby for rugby and it's as simple as that," he said. "You can overcomplicate it sometimes and try to dig a whole lot deeper for a number of reasons but everyone's well aligned.

"It helps when they're familiar with each other, a deep squad played together internationally, a broad variety of coaches, which helps. It's good to get 'intel' from all over the world, so the simplicity at the moment has been quite different.

"But that's probably a reason why they've been so successful for a long time."

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