Alan Whetton also known as AJ is a former rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 footballer who played for New Zealand's national team, the All Blacks

All Blacks

The New Zealand men's national rugby union team, known as the All Blacks, represent New Zealand in what is regarded as its national sport....

. Whetton first played representative rugby for Auckland

Auckland Rugby Football Union

The Auckland Rugby Football Union is the governing body of rugby union in the Auckland Region, in the North Island of New Zealand. Its colours are navy blue and white in a hoop design. Auckland's top representative team have won New Zealand's top provincial rugby competition 16 times, more than...

 in 1981. He played alongside his twin brother Gary

Gary Whetton

Gary William Whetton is a retired New Zealand rugby union player. He played 180 matches for Auckland, and 58 tests at lock for the All Blacks from 1981 to 1991. He currently serves on the Auckland Blues board....

 for both Auckland, and later the All Blacks. He played a variety of positions early in his career, playing at number eight and lock before playing most often as a flanker

Flanker (rugby union)

A flanker is a position in the sport of rugby union. Flankers play in the forwards, and are generally classified as either blindside, or openside flankers; numbers six and seven respectively. The name comes from their position in a scrum in which they flank each set of forwards...

. He first played for the All Blacks in 1984 on their tour of Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, and played his first Test match

Test match (rugby union)

Test match in rugby union is a match recognised as being a full international match by at least one of the participating teams' governing bodies. It is an unofficial but widely used term in the sport....

 on 21 July against Australia

Australia national rugby union team

The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...

.

He toured with the controversial New Zealand Cavaliers

New Zealand Cavaliers

The Cavaliers was the name given to an unofficial New Zealand rugby union team which toured South Africa in 1986.The rebel tour occurred after the official All Black tour planned for 1985 was cancelled due to a legal ruling that it would be incompatible with the NZRFU's legally stated purpose:...

 on their tour of South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 in 1986. He was banned for two matches for participating in the tour, but by 1987 had cemented his place in the All Blacks. As part of a loose forward trio with Wayne Shelford

Wayne Shelford

Wayne Thomas "Buck" Shelford is a New Zealand former rugby union footballer and coach who represented and captained New Zealand in the late 1980s...

 and Michael Jones

Michael Niko Jones

Michael Niko Jones is a New Zealand former rugby union player and coach. He was nicknamed 'the Iceman' or 'Ice' because of the number of icepacks he needed for injuries. He has been voted by Rugby World magazine as the third best All Black of the 20th century after Colin Meads and Sean Fitzpatrick...

 that played 13 Tests together, Whetton played throughout the All Blacks victorious Rugby World Cup

Rugby World Cup

The Rugby World Cup is an international rugby union competition organised by the International Rugby Board and held every four years since 1987....

 campaign of 1987

1987 Rugby World Cup

The 1987 Rugby World Cup was the first Rugby World Cup. New Zealand and Australia agreed to co-host the first ever tournament with New Zealand hosting seventeen pool stage matches, two quarter-finals and the final with Australia being the junior partner hosting seven pool matches, two...

.

Whetton continued to play for the All Blacks until their semi-final defeat to Australia at the 1991 World Cup

1991 Rugby World Cup

The 1991 Rugby World Cup was the second edition of the Rugby World Cup, and was jointly hosted by England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France; at that time, the five European countries that participated in the Five Nations Championship making it the first Rugby World Cup to be staged in the...

. He played for Auckland in 1992, and finished with 150 matches for his province. Following retirement from rugby in New Zealand, he was a player coach for Kobe Steel between 1996 and 1999. He was a commentator for New Zealand's TV3 network during their coverage of the 2007 Rugby World Cup

2007 Rugby World Cup

The 2007 Rugby World Cup was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by France from 7 September to 20 October. France won the hosting rights in 2003,...

,. Whetton is currently part of the Solid Gold (radio)

Solid Gold (radio)

Solid Gold FM is a New Zealand radio network owned by MediaWorks New Zealand and dedicated to the music of the 1960s and 1970s. It began broadcasting in late 1997...

 breakfast team and is involved in the business of sporting signage. In his personal life, Whetton is married with two daughters.

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