Jimmy Gopperth

Club

Provence

Position

Center

Nationality

New Zealand

Date of birth

1983-06-29

Birthplace

New Plymouth, New Zealand

Height

179 cm (5 ft 10 in)

Weight

90 kg (198 lb; 14 st 2 lb)

James Gopperth (born 29 June 1983) is a New Zealand rugby union player who plays for Wasps in the English Premiership. His position is Fly-half.

Early life
Gopperth was born in New Plymouth. He grew up on a farm with a rugby-supportive father.

Club career
Gopperth first played rugby for New Plymouth Boys' High School, before having his first break in the game and playing for the Old Boys University in the Wellington premier competition. Gopperth joined the Wellington Academy post High School in 2001 and after impressive displays for his club, Gopperth made his first-class debut for Wellington in 2002. Then, in 2003 at the age of 20,Gopperth signed a first-team contract with Wellington Lions. Gopperth went on to sign for the-then Super 12 team Hurricanes in 2005.

Gopperth made a good start to his career with the Hurricanes when he made 12 appearances in the 2005 Super 12 season. All of his appearances during that season came from starting the game and he managed to score an impressive 139 points, scoring three tries in the process.

Gopperth finally got a chance to show what he could do in the 2005/2006 season, in the newly formed Super 14. He made seven starts during the season, but made in all 15 appearances during this season, in which he scored a fairly unimpressive 86, scoring a further two tries and racking up 637 minutes throughout.

During the 2006/2007 season Gopperth impressed for his club Wellington, although was unimpressive for his region the Hurricanes. In Super Rugby Gopperth managed to get 66 points in 13 appearances, still nowhere near his opening season tally, but for Wellington in the Air New Zealand Cup he managed to get an impressive 121 points in just 10 games, mostly through the boot finally showing what he could do.

In his final season for the Hurricanes Gopperth still could not reach his true form, only scoring 70 points in 12 games with a single try, but he impressed again in the Air New Zealand Cup where he scored an overall haul of 147 points in 12 games.

In 2008, Gopperth joined North Harbour and region Blues. During the 2008/2009 season Gopperth only managed to get 11 games and only starting nine of them, but still managing to score an impressive 101 points with four tries included. Then, Gopperth managed to rack up 90 points in 10 games for North Harbour in the Air New Zealand Cup, where he added two tries to his tally.

In 2009, only a season after joining the Blues, Gopperth joined Newcastle Falcons on