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Hurricanes chief executive reveals Ardie Savea could return from injury earlier than expected

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

Injured All Blacks loose forward Ardie Savea could be back in Super Rugby action as early as March.

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The blockbusting Hurricanes star took to social media on Sunday to notify his followers that he would be out of action for five to six months as he undergoes knee surgery next week.

However, Hurricanes chief executive Avan Lee said his franchise’s star man could return two to three months earlier than first anticipated.

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“There’s an issue with his cartilage and there is a bit of speculation about how long he will be out for, but you never really know until the surgeon has operated and seen the real extent of the issue,” he told Stuff.

“The prognosis at this stage is best-case scenario he’s back playing in three months, but it could be five or six months.

“We’re not holding to any date because some people heal well, some people have complications post-surgery, some people come back quicker than others. You’ve got to be really careful about putting a date on it.”

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While Savea’s presence in the loose forward mix will be sorely missed, it’s not as if the Hurricanes will be without any sturdy reinforcements during his absence.

The No. 7 jersey now looks to be a straight shootout between one-test All Black Gareth Evans and Wellington co-captain Du’Plessis Kirifi, who plays a very similar style to that of Savea.

At blindside flanker, 11-test international Vaea Fifita will lead the charge to stake a claim in the starting side, although the hard-hitting Reed Prinsep and Hawke’s Bay rookie Devan Flanders will act as a strong challengers for the No. 6 jersey.

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Prinsep and Flanders can both also play No. 8, where ex-Blues bruiser Murphy Taramai will look to make his mark after a season with the Colorado Raptors in the Major League Rugby competition in the United States.

The Hurricanes have little under two months to determine their best loose forward trio before their season kicks-off, but they may have to do so without their head coach John Plumtree, who has been strongly linked with an All Blacks assistant coaching position under Ian Foster, should he win the job ahead of Scott Robertson.

Should he win promotion into the national set-up, assistant coach Jason Holland stands as the primary candidate to take over the head coach responsibilities after having been with the Hurricanes since 2016, but Lee said he will keep as many options available as possible.

“Obviously we’ve got some good coaches already, and realistically to go to the market now for a competition that’s already in it’s pre-season would be incredibly difficult,” he told Stuff.

“There are people on the market, but to bring someone in cold would be pretty challenging, and like I said we’ve got some really good people who are already here, been through planning and known by the team.”

The Hurricanes get their 2020 Super Rugby campaign underway against the Stormers in Cape Town on February 1.

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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?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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