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Sam Cane might return from broken neck sooner than many fear

Sam Cane last June. Photo / Getty Images.

Chiefs head coach Colin Cooper is hoping All Blacks flanker Sam Cane will be given the green light to start playing again by the end of May as he recovers from the broken neck he suffered against South Africa.

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That would still give Cane time to make the All Blacks squad for the Rugby World Cup in Japan but Cooper insisted the defending champion’s leading open side would not be rushed back and his return will depend on specialist medical advice.

Cane was left in a neck brace a long period after a collision with Springboks loose forward Francois Louw in the 35th minute of the All Blacks victory at Loftus Versfeld in October last year. In an interview with Radio Sport’s D’Arcy Waldegrave, Cooper said he hoped for good news to come back from Cane’s meeting with a specialist later this year.

“He goes back to a specialist early April and hopefully they give him the green flag end of April or May,” said Cooper who will have Brodie Retallick as the team’s on-field leader for the Chiefs Super Rugby campaign with Cane being involved off the pitch.

“We’ve kept with him (Cane) the whole time. He’s a great leader and so he will captain the Chiefs for 2019 and co-captain with Brodie Retallick. So while Sam is not playing he’ll be doing a lot of the captaincy off the field and Brodie will be leading the team on the field.”

Cane admits the injury has forced him to look at his life and recognise what is important going forward and he told journalists: “It probably put rugby in perspective within half a day for me. People were saying ‘will you be right for the World Cup?’ I was just like, honestly, that’s the furthest thing from my mind at the moment.”

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J
JW 5 hours ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

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