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Michael Fatialofa takes another step towards recovery from horrific injury

By Josh Raisey
(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

The continued recovery of Worcester Warriors’ Michael Fatialofa from a serious spinal injury has taken another astonishing turn, as he has begun weight training just days after walking out of hospital.

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The 27-year-old New Zealander had been in hospital since January 4 after he suffered a C4 vertebrae fracture and a severe contusion of the spinal cord when appearing as a replacement during a Gallagher Premiership match against Saracens at Allianz Park.

He spent almost three weeks in intensive care in London before being transferred to the rehab unit at the Royal Buckinghamshire hospital in Aylesbury. Within eleven weeks, the lock was walking unaided having been paralysed from the neck down, and has continued to chronicle his recovery.

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He returned home last week, walking out of the specialist spinal injuries unit, and is set to continue his rehabilitation with Worcester, but has even started lifting weights again. His wife Tatiana recently shared a video on social media of the lock floor pressing with the help of Warriors teammate Joe Taufete’e.

Upon Fatitalofa’s return to Sixways, the Warriors’ Head of Medical Ryan Kehoe said:

“His rehabilitation at this stage will focus on improving his general muscular strength, co-ordination and mobility.”

This is yet more progress in the Kiwi’s recovery, which has been one of the most inspiring stories in the game recently.

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Fatialofa originally signed for Worcester in 2018 having played for the Hurricanes in Super Rugby and Auckland in the Mitre 10 Cup, and was making his ninth appearance of the season for the West Midlands outfit when he suffered the injury. While he was set to move on to a French club when his Warriors contract expired at the end of June, he will now stay local to the Warriors’ facilities to continue his rehabilitation.

A fundraising campaign was launched by the Rugby Players Association’ charity Restart with the support of Warriors in early February.

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Nickers 6 hours ago
All Blacks sabbaticals ‘damage Super Rugby Pacific when it is fighting for survival’

Sabbaticals have helped keep NZ’s very best talent in the country on long term deals - this fact has been left out of this article. Much like the articles calling to allow overseas players to be selected, yet can only name one player currently not signed to NZR who would be selected for the ABs. And in the entire history of NZ players leaving to play overseas, literally only 4 or 5 have left in their prime as current ABs. (Piatau, Evans, Hayman, Mo’unga,?) Yes Carter got an injury while playing in France 16 years ago, but he also got a tournament ending injury at the 2011 World Cup while taking mid-week practice kicks at goal. Maybe Jordie gets a season-ending injury while playing in Ireland, maybe he gets one next week against the Brumbies. NZR have many shortcomings, but keeping the very best players in the country and/or available for ABs selection is not one of them. Likewise for workload management - players missing 2 games out of 14 is hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again let’s use some facts - did it stop the Crusaders winning SR so many times consecutively when during any given week they would be missing 2 of their best players? The whole idea of the sabbatical is to reward your best players who are willing to sign very long term deals with some time to do whatever they want. They are not handed out willy-nilly, and at nowhere near the levels that would somehow devalue Super Rugby. In this particular example JB is locked in with NZR for what will probably (hopefully) be the best years of his career, hard to imagine him not sticking around for a couple more after for a Lions tour and one more world cup. He has the potential to become the most capped AB of all time. A much better outcome than him leaving NZ for a minimum of 3 years at the age of 27, unlikely to ever play for the ABs again, which would be the likely alternative.

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