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‘No real rush’: Injured All Black Quinn Tupaea shares injury update

Quinn Tupaea of the All Blacks is assisted from the field after sustaining a injury during The Rugby Championship & Bledisloe Cup match between the Australia Wallabies and the New Zealand All Blacks at Marvel Stadium on September 15, 2022 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Injured All Blacks and Chiefs midfielder Quinn Tupaea has shared a positive update on his recovery from an ACL injury.

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After making his Test debut against Tonga at Mt Smart Stadium in 2021, Tupaea became a regular member of the All Blacks under coach Ian Foster.

But the 23-year-old had just found his feet in the Test arena when his season was cut short against the Wallabies.

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Looking to clean Tupaea out of a ruck in last year’s Bledisloe Cup clash in Melbourne, Wallabies lock Darcy Swain hit the All Blacks midfielder around the knee.

Tupaea fell awkwardly, and had to be helped from the field at Marvel Stadium. The incident was nothing short of disastrous with the Rugby World Cup about 12 months away.

Earlier this year, Tupaea told 1News that he was “still pretty angry” about the incident – but a return to rugby beckons for the exciting talent.

“In the last two weeks I’ve started some change of direction stuff and it’s going really well,” Tupaea told SENZ The Run Home.

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“I’m just below sprinting pace and doing swerves and cuts and steps and ticking up about six or seven kilometres every second day so I’m pretty happy with where my knee is tracking.

“It’s in a good spot at the moment.”

Tupaea is expected to miss off all of this year’s Super Rugby Pacific season with the ladder-leading Chiefs.

While the midfielder has been left to watch on from the sidelines, the Chiefs have started their season with a perfect nine wins from as many games.

Tupaea won’t have a lot of time to state his case for selection ahead of the Rugby World Cup, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to rush his recovery.

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“At the moment my return is around July 10, so if it’s a couple of weeks after that or a month after that I think it’s going to be Waikato pre-season,” he added.

“That’s sort of what I’m aiming for at the moment, but (there’s) no real rush and no earlier than that date.”

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Comments

2 Comments
K
Kenneth 568 days ago

Just a dirty player Swain is
He's ruined a young talent future and what's worse is Swain gets to play on
The injury is never going to be 100/ the same no matter how much rehabilitation he gets
Cause it's happened to me and my son and we had really good futures in the game, we both had the best rehab and surgeons but 3 knee surgery later we both had to give the game away unfortunately. I hope he does get back to full status in the game
I hope one day Swain gets back what he deserves 🚷

A
Andrew 568 days ago

Injured? Deliberately maimed by Australias version of Richard Loe.

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