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Ardie Savea's nearing return to the playing field curtailed

Ardie Savea. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

A knee injury in the final stages of the World Cup saw Ardie Savea, one of New Zealand’s best performers from 2019, sidelined for the All Black’s last match of the tournament.

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That injury also kept Savea out of the first seven rounds of this year’s Super Rugby season and the World Rugby Player of the Year nominee has now revealed that he was eyeing up a return in early May for his Hurricanes club.

Pay cuts are ‘inevitable’ for New Zealand’s top All Blacks due to the season’s contraction:

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Speaking on Sky Sports’ The Breakdown, the 26-year-old said “I was planning to be back around then, but I was in no rush. It was feeling good to play, but it all depended on how it felt and if I felt comfortable. It’s a feel thing from now on.”

The Hurricanes were one of four New Zealand sides sitting on a four win, two loss record before the season was called to a halt almost two weeks ago due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Their record is especially impressive given the absence of Beauden Barrett from the side, thanks to his move north to the Blues, as well as Savea’s injury.

With no games likely in the near future, Savea will continue to enjoy an excessively extended pre-season and will train from the confines of his home in Wellington.

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“I have gym equipment at home and pretty much all the stuff I do at the moment I can do from home,” Savea said.

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“All the running I can do at the park just behind my house, so I can quickly nip over there and do the conditioning that I have to do.”

Earlier this year, Savea revealed that he was seriously considering taking up a stint in rugby league but that his knee injury had potentially curtailed his plans.

“It sucks that I got this injury because I was low key thinking about it [switching to league] for next year,” Savea told former rugby league international Isaac John on John’s personal podcast.

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Super Rugby’s potentially permanent suspension could further complicate a move for Savea, if he’s intent on playing two more full seasons of union for making a code switch.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

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?

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