Coles could miss Super Rugby
Beauden Barrett suddenly looms as the Hurricanes’ skipper for 2018.
Designated captain Dane Coles is set to miss the bulk - or all - of the upcoming Super Rugby season, after rupturing an anterior cruciate ligament playing for New Zealand against France. He’s due for surgery in the next week and best-case scenario is that he’ll return t in late June; worst is he’s done for the next nine months, says head coach Chris Boyd.
TJ Perenara proved a very able stand-in skipper this year, when concussion kept Coles sidelined. However, it sounds as if that might be the halfback’s lot.
That leaves Brad Shields and Barrett. Given Shields leaves for England after the 2018 campaign and Barrett is seen as captaincy material by the All Blacks, you can imagine the potential outcome.
Boyd is working on the basis that Coles will be available for games against the Blues (July 7) and Chiefs (July 13) and then the playoffs, should the Hurricanes qualify. He’ll know for sure once the hooker’s had surgery, but still needs a skipper in the meantime.
‘‘My intention is that he [Coles] will start the season as our captain and we’ll appoint a co-captain or we’ll appoint somebody to work in his absence,’’ Boyd said. ‘‘That’s yet to be discussed with some guys that I need to talk to, that are still drifting back from the northern hemisphere, before we make a decision.’’
Perenara is one of those and it would be premature to assume he’ll automatically replace Coles again.
‘‘Dane will be our captain. If Dane is not our captain, TJ did a really good job for us in that captaincy space and he also does a slightly different - but very good job for us as an able-bodied lieutenant so to speak,’’ said Boyd. ‘‘To be honest about it, I haven’t had a discussion with TJ so we’ll sit down and talk to him around what things may or may not look like in the future.’’
Coles’ absence will be a shame, but not something that’s foreign to the team. He had a couple of spells out of the team in 2016, with calf and rib problems, before this year’s knee, calf and concussion complaints.
Leni Apisai was one of the men to deputise for Coles in the last two campaigns. But Asafo Aumua’s emergence has seen Apisai head to the Blues.
Hutt Old Boys Marist and Bay of Plenty hooker James O’Reilly has now been drafted into the Hurricanes’ group. The first players reported for duty last Thursday, but it will be some time until they’re joined by the squad’s New Zealand Maori and All Blacks players.
Then there’s those who are rehabilitating after surgery. Ben May (knee) should be fit after Christmas, while Blade Thomson (shoulder) and Michael Fatialofa (knee) are due to play the February 2 preseason game against the Crusaders in Greymouth.
Matt Proctor (shoulder) should be right when the campaign-proper starts in Pretoria on February 25. Jordie Barrett (week three), Isaiah Walker-Lea-were (midseason) and Nehe Milner-Skudder (after mid-season) are others making useful progress from their shoulder surgeries.