This story was first published on Wednesday August 22.
He only has two Tests under his belt but already Jack Goodhue is looking like another safe pick in the black jersey.
The 23-year-old midfielder crossed over for the All Blacks in their convincing 38-13 win over the Wallabies in Sydney to cap off a strong performance – one assistant coach Ian Foster took notice of.
"He wasn't overthinking things," Foster said.
"He just did what was obvious to him and that doesn't just happen - it comes from a lot of hard work behind the scenes."
Hard work he was putting in way before he hit TV screens.
He's a star for Northland, the Crusaders and now the All Blacks but it was at Auckland secondary school Mount Albert Grammar where Goodhue's talents really started to come through.
The Crusaders youngster has impressed his senior teammates in Super Rugby.
Jack and twin brother Josh are two of four Goodhue brothers who boarded at MAGS - Jack was head boy in 2013.
His First XV coach at the time, Geoff Moon saw a rare focus and priority from the midfielder - school work always came first.
"He was invited to the New Zealand Sevens when he was at school," Moon said.
"First time he had to decline it because he had to complete an assignment."
But it wasn’t just school work that came before the game with his family also taking precedence.
"He was in the Blues' schools team but dad up north injured his back and called the boys up to milk cows for a couple of weeks, so he never went to the Blues camp - he went farming for two weeks."
A MAGS legend says Goodhue never missed a tackle in 2013 but the one thing he did miss was the school ball to sleep on the eve of a game.
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