Ricky Riccitelli

Two Super Rugby titles eight years apart, two call-ups to the All Blacks, and not a single cap to show for either of them.

Ricky Riccitelli has won Super Rugby twice, with the Hurricanes in 2016 and the Blues in 2024. New Zealand called him into the squad twice, in 2017 and 2018, and released him both times without a cap. He is 31 and that is unlikely to change now.

He hooks for Montpellier, stands 1.78m and weighs 110kg.

Durban is where he was born. The family moved to New Zealand when he was four, after his mother took a job there, and he grew up in New Plymouth and went to Francis Douglas Memorial College, which named him its sportsman of the year in 2012.

He started at loosehead prop in the 2015 junior world championship final, the one in which the Baby Blacks beat England, and played seven of the eight matches. Hawke’s Bay signed him that May.

Dane Coles is the reason his career took the shape it did. Riccitelli went to the Hurricanes in 2016 as injury cover for him, played all three knockout matches of a title-winning season, and spent the following years alternating between deputising for Coles and going back to provincial rugby. He started all thirteen Hurricanes games in 2018 and made the second-most tackles in the squad.

Taranaki, his adopted province, made him player of the year in 2018 and won the national championship with him in 2021 and 2023. The Blues took him in 2022, lost a final without him, and won one with him starting in 2024, 41-10 against the Chiefs.

France came in 2025, and a Top 14 final arrived in his first season there. A short, powerful hooker with an accurate throw, which is what kept getting him picked.