All Blacks hooker Nathan Harris to miss entire Super Rugby campaign with Chiefs
Chiefs and Bay of Plenty hooker Nathan Harris has been ruled out of the upcoming 2020 Super Rugby season.
Harris has been rehabilitating from a fractured ankle in September during the 2019 Mitre 10 Cup season. Following a period of shoulder pain, Harris was advised to have shoulder surgery to repair his rotator cuff, which he recently undertook in early January.
The rehabilitation period is six months, making him unavailable for the 2020 Investec Super Rugby season but is set to return for the 2020 Mitre 10 Cup season.
Chiefs Physiotherapist Kevin McQuoid said: “Unfortunately for Nathan his injury rules him out for the 2020 season, our aim is to have him back on the field in time for Bay of Plenty’s Mitre 10 Cup campaign.”
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Harris said: “While I am gutted to have been ruled out for the season, this period of time will be able to assist me in rehabbing well to ensure I can be fit and ready for Bay of Plenty’s Mitre 10 Cup campaign.”
Harris has a half-century of caps for the Chiefs and has made 20 appearances for the All Blacks over five years. After entrenching himself as one of New Zealand’s three best hookers over that same period, Harris was usurped last year by Liam Coltman and Asafo Aumua.
The 27-year-old could now find himself even further down the pecking order come the July Test series.
@ChiefsRugby will be rolling out Brad Weber, Aaron Cruden and Anton Lienert-Brown off the bench in the second half ?https://t.co/vdA7W064el… #SuperRugby #BLUvCHI
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) January 28, 2020
Harris re-signed with the Chiefs last year until the end of 2021.
Harris has been replaced in the squad by Counties Manukau hooker Donald Maka. 25-year-old Maka has been training with the squad as a replacement player during the Gallagher Chiefs pre-season campaign. Maka made his Mitre 10 Cup debut for Taranaki in 2017.
With Liam Polwart retiring due to concussion at the end of 2019, the Chiefs will now be heavily reliant on Samisoni Taukei’aho, who was today named to start in the Chiefs’ first game of the season, against the Blues.
– with Chiefs Rugby
Catch up on all of the very best from Round 3 of the Top League, featuring a host of international stars including Carter, Retallick, Kerevi, Marks, Giteau, Snyman, Read, and many more:
Comments on RugbyPass
We’re building a bridge but can't agree where the river is.
2 Go to commentsfirst no arms shoulder or helmet tackle into his rib cage is going to be so very painful even to watch. go back to RU mate.
1 Go to commentsBulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to comments