RETURN TO PRO RUGBY FOLLOWING TESTICULAR CANCER

World Cup winner AARON CRUDEN had a stellar rugby career but it's far from his biggest life achievement

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IF YOU were to look at Aaron Cruden's career on paper, it sounds like something you would wishfully think up with your mates over a few pints in the pub. Fifty caps for the All Blacks at fly-half with a Rugby World Cup and five Rugby Championship winners' medals, played against the British & Irish Lions, captain of the 2009 Junior World Cup-winning New Zealand team and named Junior World Player of the Year, two Super Rugby titles with Chiefs and over 100 games in the tournament, sabbaticals in Japan and France, and you're a Barbarian.

It almost reads as too perfect to be true and it's made even more unbelievable when you then realise the circumstances in which Cruden's career began. "Rugby took off for me in high school, making age-grade teams and getting on the radar for the province. I was 18, leaving school thinking I was invincible and that the world was my oyster. Strolling out of the school gates for the last time with no cares in the world," Cruden tells Rugby World. "Then one day I was washing in the shower and felt a lump that I thought was a bit odd. I left it initially for a week or two but it hung around, so I made the decision to give my GP a call and get it checked out. Not long after that, I found out I was about to start my own journey with being diagnosed with testicular cancer.