Injury situation goes from bad to worse for Highlanders with another player ruled out for the season
Otago and Highlanders’ hooker Ricky Jackson has been forced out of the 2020 Super Rugby season with an ankle injury sustained during training pre-Christmas.
After extensive investigations and consultations, Jackson underwent surgery to stabilize his ankle.
Highlanders’ Team Doctor Asheer Singh said, “unfortunately for Ricky this is a long-term injury that rules him out for the 2020 season, our aim is to have him back on the field in time for the Mitre 10 Cup.”
Jackson (21) is the second young player to have been ruled out due to injury after 20-year-old Connor Garden Bachop’s season ended in early December.
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“This is tough on Ricky particularly as he had worked very hard to get into shape after an injury during the Mitre 10 Cup. What I do know about Ricky though, he is resilient and will work his way back with Otago and be with us again in 2021,” said Head Coach, Aaron Mauger.
Jackson represented New Zealand at the 2018 iteration of the Under 20 Rugby World Championship where the Baby Blacks finished in 4th place.
Jackson has been replaced in the squad by Bay of Plenty hooker, Nathan Vella, an experienced rake who played the first of his 15 provincial games for Auckland in 2011 prior to a period overseas with London Welsh and then the Bedford Blues.
In 2016, Vella returned to New Zealand to play for Canterbury in the 2016 Mitre 10 Cup. He has previously provided injury cover for the Crusaders and this season played his provincial rugby for Bay of Plenty.
- with Highlanders Rugby
Ditch Super Rugby? That's one former All Black's sensational proposal for Australia and New Zealand:
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Turn it up. Give me your john A game would ya!
Go to commentsI didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.
What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.
Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.
There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..
and..
I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍
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