Mehrtens - agent provocateur?

Andrew Mehrtens

All Blacks rugby great Andrew Mehrtens has denied he has been offering his services to overseas clubs and said he believed some British-based agents were trying to bolster their incomes by seeing if they could tempt the clubs into nibbling at the bait with his name on it.

"It's just not the way you do things," he said. "I think there are a few cowboys over there who go to a club and say 'We can get you a certain player.'

"If the club says 'Yes' then they go to the player and say 'We can get you a deal' and create some dosh for themselves."

Mehrtens is contracted to the New Zealand and Canterbury unions until the end of this year and is still very much focused on his career here.

"I'm committed right here and want to do well and give my best.

"I have always said I would look to go overseas as an option when I had given everything to New Zealand rugby - which hasn't happened," Mehrtens, 31, said.

"I'm certainly not ruling it out because there will be a time when I want a different challenge and feel I've given everything I can here. But at the moment it's not even in the pipeline.

"I have had no dealings with anyone in England and I have had no dealings with any clubs and certainly haven't instructed anyone to go asking around to enquire if they will take me."

Mehrtens also spoke about his reaction to the NZRU wish that one of the Crusaders' many first five-eighths move around the country to allow them all game time and for Mehrtens to transfer over to the Hurricanes.

When the deals were completed for the 2005 Super 12 squads, it was revealed that the Crusaders had offloaded Cameron McIntyre to the Highlanders but the three plum All Blacks, Mehrtens, Daniel Carter and Aaron Mauger, had all been retained.

"They would have preferred one of us to have been at the Hurricanes and I can see their reasoning," Mehrtens said.

"However, although we talk about it being professional rugby, everyone says they want the old values to remain.

"One of those is loyalty and passion. I am a Crusader and have been for 10 years now ... this is me and what I am and I would struggle to get the best out of myself anywhere else."

Did he seriously consider the offer to move to the Hurricanes?

"No. I could handle living in Wellington, it's a pretty cool city. But it wasn't really a consideration. I would struggle to transplant that passion into something else."

- NZPA