Gone far too young

By Scott MacLean

Mid-morning Tuesday came devastating news; 25 year old professional rugby player Connor Garden-Bachop had died suddenly with it later reported he’d suffered a “medical event” the night before.

The youngest of three children, Garden-Bachop faced the difficulties of his family names. Dad Stephen was both a Samoan International and a five-Test All Black (all during 1994), a provincial star for both Canterbury and Otago, and by virtue of the alphabet is listed as Highlanders player #1. Mum Sue might be one of the most talented female athletes this country has produced, being a Black Fern as well as a national basketball, hockey, and touch representative. And then there’s his uncle Graeme, cousins Aaron and Nathan Mauger, and his great-uncle, speedway legend Ivan Mauger. But even before reaching his teens he’d suffered the loss of his mother, who did from cancer in 2008.

Garden-Bachop first came to prominence as a schoolboy, following his brother Jackson to Wellington’s Scots College which was then in the process of turning itself from being a middling second-division rugby school in the capital to a national powerhouse and where my path and his first crossed. He was the youngest of the clutch of backs – alongside first-five TJ Va’a, centre Malo Tuitama, and the Umaga-Jensen twins and later professional teammates Peter (fullback) and Thomas (second-five) – that won a shared National 1st XV title in 2014 in an epic draw with Hamilton Boys High where he scored two tries. In 2016 he was in the NZ Barbarians Schools side.

He spent his first year out of school in Canterbury, playing for their U19s in the now-defunct Jock Hobbs tournament and making his NPC debut. In 2019 he returned to Wellington, helping his club, Northern United, win the Jubilee Cup and debuting for the Lions. That offseason he joined the Highlanders and made his Super Rugby debut in the Covid-affected competition that year, and in 2022 twice played for the Maori All Blacks. He never forgot his roots, coming back to Norths in late 2022 and along with his brother, Duplessis Kirifi, and TJ Perenara helping his club make another Jubilee Cup final. He didn’t play in the final that year, but the club made sure he got a second winners medal.

Considered a bit of a journeyman by some, it’s still some rugby CV.

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The sudden nature of his death will inevitably lead to questions being asked. Unlike the recent death of another young Maori rugby star, Sean Wainui, there’s no suggestion of any murky circumstance. With the actual cause of death undisclosed – and frankly there’s no reason why it has to be – the questions will be whether something was missed in the numerous medical tests that professional rugby players go through or it was it something that could not be foreseen at all. Unfortunately though, as it seems to when any young and outwardly fit person passes suddenly these days, it has kicked off the speculation machine. He does not deserve that.

Garden-Bachop was a father to young twin girls, who now face growing up without a parent in much the same way he himself did, and I hope that NZ Rugby and the Rugby Players Association put aside their public bickering over the game’s governance to do the right thing by them and his partner.

His passing is tragic, but here’s how I’ll remember him; a fast, talented, outside back on the field, and a thoroughly good kid with a cheeky grin, a wicked sense of humour, and liked by many off it. And he certainly lived up to the burden of his surnames.

RIL CGB

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