We take a look at five former top-flight rugby players who are somehow still lacing up their boots most weekend’s.
#1. Ma’a Nonu (New Zealand)
San Diego Legion re-signed former New Zealand All Blacks Ma’a Nonu for the 2023 Major League Rugby season. The 40-year-old centre is 6’0″ and 240 lbs and still smashing people.
Ma’a played 872 minutes in 13 matches, starting 12, and scored one try in 2022. For Ma’a, 2022 was is his second stint with the Legion. During the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he played 289 minutes in 4 starts and scored 3 tries. He then signed with Toulon as a medical joker and spent 2020 and 2021 with the team.
Ma’a is from Wellington, New Zealand, and attended First Strathmore Park Primary School and then Rongotai College.
He played his amateur rugby for Oriental Rongotai, the Wellington Secondary Schools from 1999-2000, and Wellington U19s in 2001. He also played rugby league as a youth.
He played for Wellington from 2002-2015, Super Rugby for the Hurricanes from 2003-2015, the Ricoh Black Rams in 2011-12 in Japan, the Blues in 2012, Highlanders in 2013, Toulon in the Top 14 from 2015-2018, and the Blues in 2019.