Cam Millar: the 2025 NPC's top points scorer, and 27 points to beat the Crusaders

In 2025 nobody in the NPC scored more points than Cam Millar. The Otago first five finished the season with 156, 23 more than the next man, and along the way he converted the try that put Otago ahead for good in their Ranfurly Shield win in Christchurch and kicked the injury-time penalty that won them a quarter-final. A year earlier he had scored 27 points to beat the Crusaders in Dunedin. In 2027 the goalkicker from Gore takes his boot north to the Blues. This is his story so far.

Gore and Albion Excelsior

Cameron Millar was born on 13 July 2002 and grew up in Gore, in a house next to the school field. RugbyPass reported that he spent hours there as a boy practising his goalkicking, with Dan Carter as his model. His junior rugby was played at the Albion Excelsior club, and the Southland Tribune has noted that the club's 2015 under-13 side also included Finn Hurley, Jack Taylor and Hayden Michaels, who all went on to the Highlanders set-up.

Their coach, Sean Hurley, remembered in 2022 that Millar stood out early as a complete player. "He could run, he could kick, he could pass, and tackle," he told the Southland Times, as the Southland Tribune later reported. He also recalled a boy who stayed behind after training "kicking until he couldn't really see the goalposts".

Millar went to Gore High School, part of what allblacks.com described as a remarkable era of development centred on the school's rugby programme. All Blacks prop Ethan de Groot came through a year or two ahead of him, and Hurley, Taylor, Michaels and Harrison Morton were his contemporaries. "We're all close, went to the same schools growing up," Millar told allblacks.com. In 2022 he told the ODT: "It's pretty cool for a small town like Gore."

Otago Boys' and Taieri

He finished his schooling at Otago Boys' High School in Dunedin. "It really pushed me out of my comfort zone going up to Dunedin," he told allblacks.com. RugbyPass reported that he was a prolific scorer in 2020 for the Otago Boys' First XV that won the Otago secondary schools championship.

In 2021, his first year out of school, he joined the Taieri club for his rookie premier season. He kicked six penalties in the Dunedin premier club final against Green Island at Forsyth Barr Stadium on 31 July 2021, and Taieri won 21-17. Earlier that year, at the Super Rugby Under 20 tournament in Taupō, he had converted all ten tries and scored one himself as the Highlanders Under 20 side beat a New Zealand Barbarians team 70-17 on 11 April 2021: 25 points in one match.

Otago debut

Otago gave him his first-class debut at 19 in a non-competition match against Wellington at Forsyth Barr Stadium on 31 October 2021. He did not miss a kick: four penalties, the best of them from 48m on the angle, and three conversions, 21 points in a 33-28 win. Otago coach Tom Donnelly had said before the game: "I think he's got a massive future in the game." Millar's NPC debut followed on 5 November 2021, a 27-25 loss to Waikato at Rotorua International Stadium, and he played four NPC games that season.

New Zealand Under 20

In 2022 he went back to Taupō with the Highlanders Under 20 side, and his form there earned him a place in the New Zealand Under 20 team for the Oceania Championship at Sunshine Coast Stadium in Queensland. New Zealand won all three games, beating Fiji 74-5 on 1 July 2022, Argentina 32-9 on 5 July 2022 and Australia 69-12 on 10 July 2022, to take the title. Millar played in all three and scored a try and 20 points, by NZ Rugby History's count. He was, the Otago Daily Times noted, one of seven players from the Highlanders region's "golden generation" in that team, and RugbyPass counted more players from Gore in it than from Auckland.

Otago's No 10

Back home, Millar started the 2022 NPC behind Josh Ioane and, as the ODT put it, finished it "as the undisputed starter for Otago". He kicked five penalties in the 25-19 opening win over Tasman in Dunedin on 13 August 2022 and ended the season with 75 points from nine games.

In October 2022 the Highlanders' new coach, Clarke Dermody, called him into the 2023 squad, a year earlier than planned. "I've been dreaming about this since I was a real young fella," Millar told the ODT. He grew up idolising Carter, he said, and was also a fan of two Highlanders first fives, Lima Sopoaga and Hayden Parker.

An ankle ligament injury in the early rounds of the 2023 NPC kept him out for nearly five months and limited him to two Otago games that year. He came back in 2024 with ten games, a try and 100 points, the fourth-highest total in the competition. The try came in a 31-28 win over Northland at Semenoff Stadium in Whangārei on 4 October 2024, a 16-point night.

The Highlanders

His Super Rugby debut came off the bench against the Western Force at Rugby Park in Invercargill on 19 March 2023, at a ground where, the Highlanders noted, he would have watched plenty of rugby while growing up in Gore. The Highlanders won 43-35, their first win of the season. The ODT called his first appearance a very brief cameo.

Six days later, on 25 March 2023, he had 25 minutes against the Fijian Drua at Forsyth Barr Stadium and scored the final try of a 57-24 win, chasing a grubber kick from No 8 Nikora Broughton, then converted it. "I think that's actually my first try in all first-class rugby," he told the ODT.

In 2024 he started six of his eight Super Rugby games. After 13 points in a 28-17 win over Moana Pasifika at Teufaiva Stadium in Nukuʻalofa, Tonga, on 4 May 2024, he started against the Crusaders at Forsyth Barr Stadium on 11 May 2024. Millar kicked six penalties from six attempts, scored a try set up by Folau Fakatava and converted both Highlanders tries, 27 of his side's points in a 32-29 win in front of 18,537. It was the Highlanders' first win over the Crusaders in more than three years, the ODT reported, and it ended a run of 19 games without a win against New Zealand opposition. The paper's verdict was that the night would "be recorded as his coming of age". He played eight games and scored 61 points in 2024, and nine games in 2025.

2025: the top scorer, the Shield and a final

Millar played all 13 of Otago's games in the 2025 NPC and scored 156 points (three tries, 51 conversions and 13 penalties), the most of any player in the competition. Taranaki's Josh Jacomb was next with 133. His best single haul was 24 points, from a try, five conversions and three penalties, in a 51-17 win over Auckland at Eden Park on 4 October 2025.

He was at the centre of the season's biggest moments. In the Ranfurly Shield challenge against Canterbury at Apollo Projects Stadium in Christchurch on 20 September 2025, he landed a 50-22 from a narrow angle in the first half, and in the second he converted hooker Liam Coltman's try to put Otago 38-36 ahead with about 15 minutes left. Otago held on to take the Shield. A week later, on 27 September 2025, he kicked 16 points in the 41-26 first defence against North Harbour in Dunedin.

The quarter-final against Waikato at Forsyth Barr Stadium on 10 October 2025 was his night. Waikato scored in the 78th minute to level the game at 41-41, and in injury time Millar kicked a penalty from 45m to win it 44-41, New Zealand Rugby's competition report recorded. Earlier he had set up a try for Jae Broomfield with a cross-kick. A week later he added five conversions and a penalty in the 41-17 semi-final win over Bay of Plenty, and he converted all three Otago tries in the final at Apollo Projects Stadium on 25 October 2025, which Canterbury won 36-28.

The Highlanders, naming their 2026 squad that November, said Millar had had his best NPC season, guiding Otago to "their first championship final in decades".

2026 and the move north

He opened the 2026 Super Rugby season the same way. Against the Crusaders at Forsyth Barr Stadium on 13 February 2026, with three minutes to play, he kicked a 47m penalty to win the game 25-23, the ODT reported, two years after his 27-point night against the same opponents at the same ground. He played 12 Super Rugby games in 2026 and scored 91 points.

By then his future had become one of the stories of the Highlanders' season. The club had signed Josh Jacomb, Mika Muliaina and Patrick Pellegrini as first fives, and on 14 July 2026, the day after his 24th birthday, the Blues announced that Millar had signed a two-year contract from 2027. He thanked the Highlanders and the Otago rugby community for his development, and added: "The chance to join the Blues is one I'm really excited about."

Blues general manager of rugby Murray Williams said: "He has an excellent kicking game, manages matches well." The Blues' general manager of rugby added that Millar had shown composure whenever he had been given chances at Super Rugby level.

He had one more Otago season to play, and he played all 12 games of it, scoring 84 points, the joint third-highest total in the 2026 NPC. On 1 October 2026 against Auckland in Dunedin, after Auckland had levelled the scores at 42-42, he kicked a match-winning penalty in the 81st minute, the competition's report said, for a 45-42 win. Otago beat Hawke's Bay 50-14 in a quarter-final in Dunedin on 10 October 2026 and lost the semi-final to Northland 38-19 at Semenoff Stadium in Whangārei on 16 October 2026. By NZ Rugby History and RugbyPass figures, those 12 games took him to 50 for Otago.

Style and standing

Millar's reputation is built on the boot. The ODT called him a "superboot" in his Taieri days, and in 2026 described him as a touch old school, more about kicking than fancy running, and as good a goalkicker as any in the country. He has worked on the rest of his game too: in 2022 he told the ODT he wanted "to keep on growing my running game", and he spent the following summer on his speed.

The people who have picked him talk about control. The Blues' general manager of rugby pointed to game management and tempo, and Donnelly called him level-headed in 2021. The Highlanders described his goalkicking in the latter rounds of the 2025 NPC as unerring.

He has not played Test rugby for any country.

Where he is now

The Blues named their 2027 squad on 28 October 2026, and Millar is one of three first fives with Beauden Barrett and Rico Simpson. "Cam and Nic bring Super Rugby experience from the Highlanders," head coach Jason Holland said, referring to Millar and halfback Nic Shearer, who has also moved north. The squad assembles at Blues headquarters in late November 2026. Millar goes to Auckland with 50 Otago games, 33 Super Rugby games and a 2025 NPC points title behind him.

Career at a glance

Otago and Highlanders figures to the end of 2025 are from NZ Rugby History; 2026 figures are from RugbyPass match data, which matches the scoring in each 2026 match report. The Blues and the ODT give his Highlanders total as 34 appearances.