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Rising Highlanders star ruled out of Super Rugby Aotearoa with season-ending injury

(Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images)

The Highlanders have suffered a significant injury blow in their forward pack as up-and-coming lock Josh Dickson has been ruled out for the remainder of the Super Rugby Aotearoa season with a broken leg.

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Dickson was taken from the field in a medical cart during the first half of the Highlanders’ 40-20 defeat to the Crusaders in Dunedin on Saturday after his lower left leg was struck by a swinging boot.

Speaking to media on Wednesday, Highlanders assistant coach Riki Flutey confirmed that the resulting injury was a broken fibula, which is expected to keep the 25-year-old second rower out of action for at least four months.

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Dickson’s absence from the Highlanders’ starting line-up is sure to be sorely felt, with the Australian-born prospect enjoying career-best form this season.

Forming a dynamic second row partnership with highly-rated young lock Pari Pari Parkinson, Dickson had impressed onlookers with his leadership at the lineout and solid ball-carrying ability.

He currently leads Super Rugby Aotearoa for lineout wins (13), and was staking a strong claim to take one of the vacant lock positions in the All Blacks set-up prior to his injury.

With Brodie Retallick on sabbatical and Scott Barrett out for the rest of the Super Rugby Aotearoa season due to a foot injury, All Blacks boss Ian Foster urged young locks to put their hands up for selection in an interview with the New Zealand Herald earlier this week.

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“You don’t have to be Einstein to know we’re spreading out net widely at lock,” Foster told the Herald.

“Scott Barrett’s injury is going to make that worse and more obvious. If you’re a young lock in this country right now then play well.”

Dickson had certainly fit that bill throughout 2020 and must have stood as one of the contenders to accompany incumbent locks Sam Whitelock and Patrick Tuipulotu in the national set-up.

This setback will put the fast-rising star’s international aspirations on ice for the time being, though, with Flutey outlining the contribution Dickson has made to the Highlanders in 2020.

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“Josh has been outstanding, [an] outstanding leader,” Flutey said.

“He’s leading off the field, running our forwards, and also on the field as well. [He’s] been playing really well.”

Injury-ridden ex-Hurricanes lock Geoff Cridge has been called into the squad as Dickson’s replacement for the remainder of the campaign, but it might well be Jack Whetton who benefits the most from his teammate’s upcoming sideline spell.

The well-travelled son of 1987 World Cup-winning All Black Gary Whetton put in a hearty display off the bench against the Crusaders after Dickson left the field.

His physical showing may be rewarded with promotion into the starting line-up, with promising rookie Manaaki Selby-Rickit also in contention to face off against the Hurricanes in Wellington this weekend.

“Manaaki is available this weekend,” Flutey said.

“He’s a young guy showing some really good signs during trainings, and off the field as well with his young leadership.”

One player who remains unlikely to play at Sky Stadium on Sunday is former All Blacks wing Nehe Milner-Skudder, who is still working through the rehabilitation of his shoulder injury.

Flutey, meanwhile, was unable to provide an update on the availability of injured pair Josh Ioane (quad) and Ngane Punivai (concussion).

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J
JW 2 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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