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Latest scans reveal true extent of damage to Quinn Tupaea's knee
By Ned Lester
The All Blacks have announced Quinn Tupaea's knee injury is more significant than initial scans suggested.
The team revealed the news on social media Thursday in a statement:
"Further scans have revealed more extensive damage to the ACL which will require surgery. Quinn will be out of rugby for 9 months, including the 2023 Super Rugby Season."
The injury occurred in the first Bledisloe test when Wallaby lock Darcy Swain attempted a dangerous clear-out on Tupaea at a ruck.
Swain was yellow carded at the time and later cited, appearing before a SANZAAR judicial committee who served the 25 year old with a six week ban.
The ban wasn't received well by fans who felt making the ban a matter of weeks rather than games was an improper form of punishment.
Furthering fans distaste for the incident, Australia named Swain in their Australian A side. Many fans interpreted this as a cop out to get one of their top locking options to chew through the ban in a shorter time.
As for Tupaea, his hopes at a Northern Tour appearance were all but wiped following the initial scan, but this update also puts his World Cup hopes in jeopardy.
Missing the next Super Rugby season places the chiefs midfielder in a real struggle to make what is already a heavily contested roster for the All Blacks midfield.
While Tupaea was considered the second option to the Crusaders David Havili this international season, a strong showing by Jordie Barrett in the second Bledisloe test as well as the impending return of Anton Lienert-Brown Brown form injury and the development of rugby league convert Roger Tuivasa-Sheck makes for a logjam 12 for Ian Foster and his selection panel.
The All Blacks captioned their post:
"Feeling for our mate.
"Recover well, Quinn. Cant't wait to see you back out there next year."
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Latest Comments
Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".
But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.
The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.
Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?
Go to commentsI think they just need to judge better when it's on and when it's not. If there is a disjointed chase and WJ has a forward in front of him and some space to work with then he should have a crack every time.
If the chase is perfect and the defence is numbered up then it needs to get sent back. From memory they have not really developed a plan for what to do if they take the ball on/in the 22 with a good chase and no counter attacking opportunity.
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