Pacy Stags wing living out little kid's dream
"I wrote down when I was six years old, a dream to play for the Stags, so I thought ‘I’m going to jump on this and see where it takes me’."
Six-year-old Michael Manson would be very proud.
Manson was born in Invercargill and as a six-year-old wrote that his dream was to play for the Stags.
His path took him north to Dunedin though where he attended Otago Boys’ High School. He carved out an impressive schoolboy sporting record as both a sprinter and rugby player.
In Year 13 his athletics made way for rugby which his sporting focus centred on.
He played for New Zealand Secondary Schools and pushed on to play for the Highlanders Under-20s team.
It was in 2020, while he was at the national under-20s tournament, when things for Manson truly started to get serious on the rugby front.
He got a text from Southland Stags coach Dale MacLeod saying they were after a winger. The same day Otago also offered him a fulltime NPC contract.
He had a decision to make.
“I thought there wasn’t going to be anything that year and I would just be training. Then I got the text and offer the same day and it just kind of struck me, what do I do?” Manson said in an interview with The Roaring Pen podcast.
He decided to stay with Otago. He got some opportunities that year with Otago but was largely in a queue behind a group of other outside backs.
The following season Southland was back in touch with another approach. This time he said yes. He wanted an opportunity with the Stags.
“I was born down here so I thought it would be pretty cool. I wrote down when I was six years old a dream to play for the Stags. So I thought, ‘I’m going to jump on this and see where it takes me’. Here I am.
“I’ve loved it, it’s pretty awesome.”
Manson showed glimpses of his raw ability in his debut Stags season in 2022, although injury hampered his campaign.
He was adjusting to the rigors defensively of being a slight winger at the NPC level.
But through six games to date in 2023 Manson has lit up the competition with his finishing ability.
His outright pace has sparked some Stags tries that otherwise wouldn’t have been scored.
Manson became the third Southland player to score an NPC first division hat-trick with his three tries against Counties on Saturday.
Unfortunately, the three-try haul wasn’t able to lift Southland to its first win in 2023.
While Southland is yet to register a win through six games Manson is confident the Southland Stags are heading in the right direction, long-term.
“I think it first comes from who they are signing. You look at all the young boys coming through, they are going to be there for four, five, six years.
“You imagine this team now, later on down the track when teams are getting all new players in, and we’ve got a good core bunch of guys that are best mates off the field and on the field it’s going to be second nature because we’ve been playing with each other for that long.”
“[Matt Saunders] coming in in that director of rugby role, he’s really stepped up and made it another level in that environment of professionalism.”
Manson’s two-year Stags deal comes to an end at the finish of the current season, although he has indicated he wants to continue in maroon beyond 2023.
“They are definitely building something pretty awesome down here and something that’s on the uprise. I’d love to stick around and see what comes.”
In the short term, Manson said a win would be big for the confidence of the team and reward for the work being put in.
The next chance is a trip to Christchurch to take on Canterbury on Sunday.
“It would mean the world, it would be like winning the World Cup. We’ll just be that excited because we are putting in the hard work, we are there or there abouts, there are a few games we could have won.
“It would be like a weight off the shoulders.”
Sunday’s game kicks off at 2.05pm.
Loving your wheels Michael. Hope Southland has the $$ to compete when the other provinces come knocking.