Blues suffer big injury blow as Rieko Ioane among three players ruled out of action
The Blues have suffered a series of potentially crippling blows to their Super Rugby campaign with three players sustaining serious injuries in the season-opener against the Chiefs at the weekend.
In a statement, the Blues confirmed All Black wing Rieko Ioane - who scored two tries at Eden Park - will be out of action for "several weeks" after fracturing his hand.
Hooker Ray Niuia has suffered a season-ending knee injury while prop Alex Hodgman has a calf tear.
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The Blues confirmed that veteran hooker James Parsons and first-five Otere Black are both expected to return from injuries as early as this week.
The Blues went down 37-29 after a second-half fightback from Warren Gatland's team on Friday evening.
- More to come
This article first appeared on nzherald.co.nz and was republished with permission.
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Let’s be honest. The draw and scheduling in the World Cup was a joke but South Africa found a way after having to go the hard (nearly impossible) way to the Cup Final via France and England. NZ had a hard game against France (lost) and had 5 weeks to prepare for the Quarter, 3 weeks knowing it was Ireland. NZ theerfore had to win one big game against an Irish team who played SA and then Scotland 7 days before. They won and it was de facto a semi final because they were playing a relatively weak Argentina team and it was a walk over. In the final a very rested NZ team was playing a very tired SA team and still lost. They couldn’t score more than 11 points. Put another way SA had to find a way to win while tired and they achieved that. NZ should thank their lucky stars that they fixed the scheduling in 2015 otherwise they would be dealing with a Bok treble.
Go to commentsRubbish article! Abuladze played most of Exeters matches when fit. He got injured against Glasgow a while ago and is out for the rest of the season, thats why he hasnt played for Exeter and Georgia recently. Do some proper research next time!
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