Crusaders captain and All Blacks lock Scott Barrett announced a contract extension until 2023 with both New Zealand Rugby and the Crusaders on Tuesday.
Missing out on a Rugby World Cup winners' medal with the All Blacks in Japan last year was a driving force for his deciding to stay in New Zealand.
"To have an opportunity to have a crack at the next World Cup, all going well with form, I've given myself the opportunity and the target to aim towards and hopefully I can put last year's disappointment behind me into a potential World Cup win," he said.
Barrett said he hadn't looked too much at playing in the northern hemisphere. He loved New Zealand rugby and playing for the All Blacks, the Crusaders and, possibly later this year, with Taranaki in the Mitre 10 Cup.
"There're so many drawcards to stay around in New Zealand and New Zealand is home for me."
Barrett said one of the challenges would be putting his hand up to take a more senior role in the middle row of the All Blacks' scrum especially with Brodie Retallick on sabbatical and Sam Whitelock getting towards the end of his career.
"It's something that excites me to potentially lead a pack at All Blacks level."
Staying in Christchurch suited him also and it gave him the chance to enjoy what he called 'a fairly weird year' of being captain. [There'd been] a lot of challenges off the field more than on, he said.
Possibly playing for Taranaki, when it was possible he might have gone throughout his career without doing that, was something he would grab if the chance arose.
It was something he had wanted to do from his youth and it was an exciting prospect.
Barrett said the enforced break in the season had given him a chance to research and study aspects of leadership and he would look to bring that through during the upcoming campaign.
While the squad had come back together on Monday with a lot of enthusiasm it was a case of building through another pre-season and not getting too excited. They were still training in bubbles and it would be a little while before they got into rugby-specific training, he said.
Crusaders forward coach Jason Ryan said they were pleased to have Barrett with the side for another three years.
He was settled in the side and was a player who was going to get better and better because his best hadn't been seen yet.
He was proving his own type of leader and had developed a leadership group who were working with him.
Like coaches in other franchises, Ryan made the point that the side's build-up had to be slow because there was a danger of soft-tissue injuries when restarting, especially after they had been running on different surfaces.
"We're pretty happy with where the boys are at," he said.
So far as he had been working during the lockdown, he said it had been a case of stripping things back and looking at key fundamentals of what they want to do in what would be a short, sharp block of games and focusing on that.
He was expecting more wet weather rugby would be involved given the later stage of winter in which games would be played.
Ryan said the absence of tough forward battles with the South African teams was a missed challenge for the side because it was something they enjoyed. But at the same time, there wouldn't be any love lost in the derbies they would play.
"I'm just really grateful that we are going to get some rugby here in New Zealand. We've got a unique opportunity to produce a tournament that no one else is doing so that's leading the way and I'm sure the boys are going to thrive in that," he said.
Missing out on the chance to chase a fourth consecutive Super Rugby title wasn't too much of a concern because the Covid-19 situation had produced another hurdle, something the side was used to after the 2011 earthquake and last year's mosque shootings.
"It challenges you in different ways, and we've found other ways to try and keep the mind occupied and engage with other people," he said.