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Mixed injury news for Highlanders duo Thomas Umaga-Jensen and Billy Harmon
By Alex McLeod
The Highlanders have received mixed injury news regarding two of their injured players, midfielder Thomas Umaga-Jensen and flanker Billy Harmon.
Both players were absent from the franchise's team sheet to play the Crusaders in Christchurch on Friday as they continue to work their way back from their respective injuries.
Umaga-Jensen, who has been arguably the best Highlanders player in a winless season thus far, picked up a groin injury and was subbed at half-time during his side's loss to the Blues in Albany three-and-a-half weeks ago.
The 24-year-old was initially expected to miss between two-to-four weeks of action, but Highlanders head coach Tony Brown revealed on Wednesday that Umaga-Jensen will be sidelined for longer than anticipated.
"He's still a fair way away," Brown said of the promising 24-year-old, who has been dogged by injuries since his Highlanders debut four years ago.
Prior to this season, Umaga-Jensen had been limited to only 10 outings at Super Rugby level, but his fortunes appeared to change this year when he managed a run of four matches to open this campaign.
In all of those matches, Umaga-Jensen caught the eye with his imposing physical frame and game-breaking ability, but Highlanders fans will have to wait at least a few more weeks before seeing him back in action.
"It's just the sort of injury we don't want to push around the groin injury, so he'll still be a couple of weeks [away]," Brown said.
Like Umaga-Jensen, Harmon won't square off against the Crusaders, his old team, at Orangetheory Stadium this weekend as he continues to wait for his first outing of the year.
The 27-year-old flanker hasn't been sighted at all this year for the Highlanders after sustaining a shoulder injury that required surgery during last year's NPC campaign with Canterbury.
The injury was expected to rule him out of the first half of this Super Rugby Pacific season, with next month's Super Round clash against the Brumbies in Melbourne earmarked as a potential return date for the Maori All Black.
However, unlike Umaga-Jensen, Brown said Harmon is progressing faster than expected and could make his Highlanders comeback imminently.
"He's doing really well, actually. He could be back a little bit sooner than that [Super Round], hopefully, but, as you know, that sort of changes week-to-week, but we're hoping to get him back sooner rather than later," Brown said.
Harmon impressed in his maiden season for the Highlanders in 2021 after transferring from the Crusaders, where he found starting opportunities hard to come by behind Matt Todd, and then Tom Christie, during his three-season stay in Christchurch.
After cementing his status as the first-choice openside flanker in the lead-up to their Super Rugby Trans-Tasman final appearance, the Highlanders faithful were naturally disappointed by the news of Harmon's lengthy absence this season.
There is reason for optimism, though, as Harmon has used his time off the field to bulk up ahead of his return to action.
"I think when you have a long-term injury, you spend a lot of time in the gym and you do a lot of training around the weights and things like that," Brown said of Harmon's heftier figure.
"He's had a shoulder reconstruction, so he's had to put a lot of work in there and make sure he's ready to go."
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Stephen Larkham, Mick Byrne, Scott Wisental, Ben Mowen, Les Kiss, Jim McKay, Rod Kafer.
There are plenty of great Australian coaches who could do a better job than Schmidt.
Go to commentsThis piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.
I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.
Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.
The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.
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