SBW out for up to nine months

AAP
August 10, 2016, 8:14 am



Sonny Bill Williams will miss the All Blacks' entire Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup series after being ruled out for up to nine months with an Achilles injury.

Centre Williams was taken to hospital in an ambulance after being taken from the field in New Zealand's opening Olympic rugby sevens loss to Japan in Rio, and NZRU CEO Steve Tew confirmed the worst on Wednesday morning.

"He has a partial rupture of his Achilles tendon, which means he will be out of rugby for six to nine months," Tew told NZ's Newstalk ZB Radio.

The injury means the Wallabies are assured of facing a relatively inexperienced All Blacks centre combination in all three Bledisloe Cup Tests, with veterans Maa Nonu and Conrad Smith retired from international rugby after last year's World Cup.

Williams had been due to miss only the first Test against Australia in Sydney on August 20 due to his Olympic commitments, before returning for the rest of the Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup matches.

Tew expected All Blacks coach Steve Hansen and fellow selectors to discuss a squad replacement for Williams shortly.

Depending on the extent of the injury, Williams could also miss the start of next year's Super Rugby season with his new club, the Auckland Blues.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sp...lympics/#page1



So I guess no kids will be receiving medals at these games!!

Shame for SBW. It's a nasty injury and a difficult thing to come back from, as many athletes say they never regain full mobility (or possibly just trust in their body) again.

Japan's win over the All Blacks does mean that Britain might eliminate the ABs in the group stages. The three third place teams play the top of the table team in their group today: USA v Fiji, Australia v South Africa, New Zealand v Great Britain. Australia are in the worse position, but are possibly more likely to beat their opponent than the USA is to beat Fiji. The USA actually has a better points differential than NZ, and play them after the GB v NZ match, so if Australia and GB win their matches, the USA and Fiji could contrive a scoreline to knock NZ out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The InnFORCEr

The injury means the Wallabies are assured of facing a relatively inexperienced All Blacks centre combination in all three Bledisloe Cup Tests, with veterans Maa Nonu and Conrad Smith retired from international rugby after last year's World Cup.

---

OK, I've gotta give props for the optimism here but we're still going to get smoked.

What are the options
Crotty, Fekitoa, Ngatai and Tamanivalu. The prospect of any two of those boys coming up against our Boys Matt Giteau, Samu Kerevi, Tevita Kuridrani, Matt Toomua, and on the maybe list Adam Ashley-Cooper, Quade Cooper, Israel Folau, Reece Hodge, Rob Horne not to mention the "should be there but for some reason lines up at number 7" list Michael Hooper.

Call me a cynic, but there are two issues here
1 The Bliks know the 4 names that they are picking 12 & 13 from and nobody in the world can argue with them being picked on form. I've written 9 names (OK one was a bit of a pisstake, or was it?) and out of those names there isn't a clear 4 let alone a clear 2.

2 Pick the best pairing you can come up with out of the list I just grabbed from the named squad....go on, I don't care what you go with, it doesn't really matter. I'd think most of you would put Gits at 12...no brainer there, at 13 it's a bit harder Kuridrani is the incumbent, but, he's been playing like a dog at the moment You could go with a bolter like Hodge, but that carries a huge risk in itself. I'm going to assume it's either Folau or Toomua (yes I know Tommua is a 10/12, but he has all the attributes you would want in the man to partner Giteau)

OK take that "best pairing and compare it with the worst pairing you can come up with from the 4 ABs.....now do you see why we don't have a chance in hell? Crotty and Tamanivalu would be a real handful for Gits and Folau, throw in a Ngatai or a Fekitoa and I think we're buggered quite frankly.

ps I feel for SBW, but New Zealand rugby will cope quite nicely without him for a year.

Turn your glass upside down GIGS, it should be half full, not half empty until we at least take the field ;)

wow Gigs, luckily everyone does not agree with you as otherwise no one would ever fancy beating the All Blacks. Giteau is certainly one of the best 12s in the world and proved that at the world cup, cant say the same for Folau but he surely shows enough glimpses of brillance.

Sorry guys, but for me, even gifts can't make up for the fact that we don't gave a 13 we can count on.

Just an opinion, I'd be delighted to eat my words