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Injury situation goes from bad to worse for Highlanders with another player ruled out for the season

Highlanders hooker Ricky Jackson. (Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

Otago and Highlanders’ hooker Ricky Jackson has been forced out of the 2020 Super Rugby season with an ankle injury sustained during training pre-Christmas.

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After extensive investigations and consultations, Jackson underwent surgery to stabilize his ankle.

Highlanders’ Team Doctor Asheer Singh said, “unfortunately for Ricky this is a long-term injury that rules him out for the 2020 season, our aim is to have him back on the field in time for the Mitre 10 Cup.”

Jackson (21) is the second young player to have been ruled out due to injury after 20-year-old Connor Garden Bachop’s season ended in early December.

Continue reading below…

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“This is tough on Ricky particularly as he had worked very hard to get into shape after an injury during the Mitre 10 Cup. What I do know about Ricky though, he is resilient and will work his way back with Otago and be with us again in 2021,” said Head Coach, Aaron Mauger.

Jackson represented New Zealand at the 2018 iteration of the Under 20 Rugby World Championship where the Baby Blacks finished in 4th place.

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Jackson has been replaced in the squad by Bay of Plenty hooker, Nathan Vella, an experienced rake who played the first of his 15 provincial games for Auckland in 2011 prior to a period overseas with London Welsh and then the Bedford Blues.

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In 2016, Vella returned to New Zealand to play for Canterbury in the 2016 Mitre 10 Cup. He has previously provided injury cover for the Crusaders and this season played his provincial rugby for Bay of Plenty.

– with Highlanders Rugby

Ditch Super Rugby? That’s one former All Black’s sensational proposal for Australia and New Zealand:

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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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