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Wales star's welcome return balances teammate's less positive diagnosis

Leigh Halfpenny /PA

Wales received good news ahead of their busy 2021/22 season when fly half Gareth Anscombe emerged unscathed from his long-awaited injury return this weekend.

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However, this has immediately been offset by reports that Leigh Halfpenny will probably now miss his country’s entire international season.

The 30-year-old Ospreys no.10 played 37 minutes of his club’s pre-season game at Northampton, kicking a conversion before leaving the field as planned.

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What progress looks like for the women’s game

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What progress looks like for the women’s game

Anscombe first suffered a serious knee injury when representing his country in a World Cup warm-up game in August 2019.

He then aggravated the problem in October 2020 when it was announced he would need a further year out of the game.

Remarkably, Anscombe’s Franklin’s Gardens run-out was his Ospreys debut – more than two years after moving west from Cardiff.

Speaking after the final whistle the 27-times-capped no.10 told BBC Wales he now hopes to make his mark for the Swansea-based club.

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“I never expected it to take this long, I don’t think anybody did,” he said.

“It’s been a long hard road and now I look forward to playing some rugby throughout the year.

“To finally put on the boots and play 35 minutes is really pleasing.

“The knee has come out really well and hopefully it is the start of my journey with the Ospreys. All in all, I am pretty pleased and am just glad to get back out there.”

However, the Rugby Paper has reported that 33-year-old full back Halfpenny is now likely to be out of action until April.

 

If this is the case then the three-time British & Irish Lion will not get the chance to add to his 96 Wales caps during the autumn series or 2022 Six Nations.

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Halfpenny suffered a bad knee ligament injury in the opening minutes of his country’s summer test against Canada two months ago.

Meanwhile another injured Wales back George North has posted videos of himself and Dan Lydiate during their rehab which it is believed will lead to a return to action during December.

Flanker Justin Tipuric is also expected to be back on the field late in 2021 following the shoulder injury he sustained with the Lions.

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J
JW 3 hours ago
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Have to imagine it was a one off sorta thing were they were there (saying playing against the best private schools) because that is the level they could play at. I think I got carried away and misintrepted what you were saying, or maybe it was just that I thought it was something that should be brought in.


Of course now school is seen as so much more important, and sports as much more important to schooling, that those rural/public gets get these scholarships/free entry to play at private schools.


This might only be relevant in the tradition private rugby schools, so not worth implementing, but the same drain has been seen in NZ to the point where the public schools are not just impacted by the lost of their best talent to private schools, there is a whole flow on effect of losing players to other sports their school can' still compete at the highest levels in, and staff quality etc. So now and of that traditional sort of rivalry is near lost as I understand it.


The idea to force the top level competition into having equal public school participation would be someway to 'force' that neglect into reverse. The problem with such a simple idea is of course that if good rugby talent decides to stay put in order to get easier exposure, they suffer academically on principle. I wonder if a kid who say got selected for a school rep 1st/2nd team before being scouted by a private school, or even just say had two or three years there, could choose to rep their old school for some of their rugby still?


Like say a new Cup style comp throughout the season, kid's playing for the private school in their own local/private school grade comp or whatever, but when its Cup games they switch back? Better represent, areas, get more 2nd players switching back for top level 1st comp at their old school etc? Just even in order to have cool stories where Ella or Barrett brothers all switch back to show their old school is actually the best of the best?

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