Radio Sport Breakfast

All Blacks lock Samuel Whitelock has admitted he was 'probably gone' a few months ago when considering his rugby future before re-signing a four year deal with New Zealand Rugby today.The two-time Rugby World Cup champion and Crusaders skipper will anchor a core group of All Blacks who have signed with NZR post 2019.The 30-year-old admits until recently he was likely to be one of the players to leave New Zealand following this year's World Cup.The new deal includes a break from New Zealand rugby to play a season in Japan later this year and exit clauses which provided some flexibility."To tell you the truth if you asked me a couple of months ago what we're doing, we were probably gone. Got to give full credit to the NZRU and their staff. They had a sit-down catch-up with me and put it out there what would it take for me to stay and the big one was a bit of flexibility…they've come back with that so without going through everything we've got some flexibility in there going to Japan next year."That's something