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Chiefs hit with double injury blow as two All Blacks set for spells on the sideline

(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

The Chiefs have been dealt a double injury blow as two of their All Blacks are set for lengthy stints on the sideline.

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Prop Angus Ta’avao and loose forward Luke Jacobson will be out of action for the foreseeable future as the Chiefs look to recuperate in their bye week following a 26-14 upset defeat to the Brumbies in Hamilton on Saturday.

Ta’avao hasn’t featured for Warren Gatland’s side since suffering a supposed knee injury in the season-opening 37-29 victory over the Blues in Auckland four weeks ago.

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The 29-year-old was given a four-to-six-week recovery timeframe, but an update provided by Gatland on Tuesday revealed that Ta’avao’s issue is actually a suspected quadricep tear.

“We thought it was a knee contusion and a haematoma from the Blues game, and it’s actually ended up being quite a significant tear in his quad,” Gatland told reporters in Hamilton.

Gatland said that Ta’avao would see a specialist to assess whether an operation or rehabilitation is necessary, and that he could be sidelined for between eight to 12 weeks.

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Jacobson, meanwhile, was pulled from the field inside the opening 10 minutes of the Brumbies clash in what was his first match back from a concussion problem which ruled him out of the All Blacks’ World Cup campaign last year.

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He was expected to be available for the Chiefs’ match against the Sunwolves in Tokyo a fortnight ago, but a tight hamstring prevented him from travelling with the squad to Japan.

It was that hamstring issue which ultimately limited the 22-year-old’s comeback appearance at FMG Stadium Waikato, as he watched the rest of the match from the team bench with an ice pack wrapped to the back of his leg.

Gatland described Jacobson’s injury as a “neural” issue, and the two-test All Black would, at the minimum, miss the Chiefs’ next fixture against the Waratahs in Wollongong next Friday.

However, the former Wales and British and Irish Lions boss conceded that it is likely that Jacobson won’t play for the next couple weeks following that encounter.

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“We thought he was 100 per cent and ready to go, from a running perspective he was good, but when you go out there, and it’s a full-on game, pushing in the scrums and mauling and stuff, it’s kind of a load that’s hard to replicate from a training perspective,” Gatland said.

“So we’ve just got to make sure that we do enough work on loading that up before he comes back.”

Gatland is eyeing a return for Jacobson via the Chiefs Development side, who are scheduled to take on the Blues Development squad in Hamilton on March 13 ahead of the Chiefs’ two-match tour of South Africa.

On a more positive note, 26-test All Blacks prop Nepo Laulala is a possibility to return to training next week after missing the last three rounds with a medial ligament injury in his knee which he picked up against the Blues.

Laulala’s recovery timeframe was initially scheduled for up to six weeks, but a comeback on the training park could indicate his availability for the Waratahs clash.

In other news:

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J
JW 1 hour ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This 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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