Jason Hammond

Jason Philip Hammond is a New Zealand former professional rugby union player.
A front-row forward, Hammond played his provincial rugby with Northland and competed with the Chiefs during the 1998 Super 12 season. He earned New Zealand Maori representative honours as a hooker in 1998 and also toured Western Samoa that year with New Zealand national [rugby union team|New Zealand "A"].
Hammond's maternal grandfather was from Fiji and an attempt was made in 2003 to draft him into the Fijian squad for the 2003 [Rugby World Cup|World Cup], but the IRB ruled him ineligible due to his NZ "A" appearance.
Retiring after the 2003 season, Hammond was left stranded on 99 Northland caps, despite mistakenly having been awarded a blazer to celebrate a century of games, but got his opportunity to bring up the milestone when he made a comeback in 2008 as injury cover.
Hammond received a sentence of five months community detention by the Whangārei District Court in 2018 for a one-punch assault the previous year, which left the victim with a fractured skull.