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All Black George Bower will miss World Cup with season-ending injury
By Finn Morton
All Blacks prop George Bower will miss this year’s Rugby World Cup after suffering an ACL injury against the Queensland Reds last month.
Bower was helped from the field inside the final minute of the contest after sustaining the cruel injury blow at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium.
Crusaders coach Scott Robertson confirmed that Bower has undergone surgery, and will miss the rest of the 2023 season.
“He had an operation last week, successful. He had an ACL reconstruction. He’s mending well,” Robertson told reporters on Wednesday.
“Both he and Sevu will have to get on the rehab journey back here.”
Bower, who has played 22-Tests in the black jersey, joins teammate Sevu Reece on the sidelines.
Reece was also ruled out of the World Cup in France after suffering an ACL injury against the Blues at Eden Park.
“It’s a hard one, for him and whole club because he is so important to us,” Robertson said about Reece’s injury earlier this season.
“Really feel for him. He’s been incredible for us. A lot of hard work will get him back to where he was beforehand, a world-class wing.”
Following their slow start to this year’s Super Rugby Pacific campaign, the Crusaders have silenced their critics with a run of impressive wins.
The title holders have won their last four matches on the bounce, which includes wins over competitive heavyweights the Blues and Brumbies.
After missing round eight on a bye week, the Crusaders return to action on Friday night against the Melbourne Rebels at AAMI Park.
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Skelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
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