Player fighting for his life

condition – and it wasn’t one the club was comfortable with, Newsroom reported.

He was, he was told, being released on medical grounds.

An outstanding 2017 provincial season for Southland won him a 2018 contract with the Blues, but his condition prevented him playing for the side.

Johnson’s fiance´, Sky Sport commentator, presenter and rugby player Taylah Hodson-Tomokino, outlined the path to Johnson being placed in an induced coma.

‘‘Nine weeks ago, Matty started getting fevers and stomach pains. After going to his GP, they couldn’t find anything wrong,’’ Hodson-Tomokino explained.

‘‘Weeks went by and his symptoms were coming and going. Two weeks ago, we went to the hospital after Matty was shivering uncontrollably stomach pains.’’

It has been 13 years since a cardiologist found his heart was twice the size it should have been.

Rheumatic fever, attacks the heart’s valves. A leaking valve meant the heart was not draining blood properly, so it enlarged. Johnson received an aortic valve replacement from a 22-year-old donor who had died in a car accident.

Once he’d returned from Melbourne, Johnson won his way into the Southlands Stags, Northland and the Blues. Then another red light, he told Newsroom in 2018.

‘‘I then had my annual check-up – and they found there was a leakage again. That was unexpected. I was hoping I would have 15 years from the first [valve]. But it was cut down short to 10.’’

The reason was almost certainly the and had additional workload the demands of professional rugby placed on the valve.

Highlander Buxton Popoali’i is another Super Rugby player whose career was derailed by rheumatic fever.

For Popoali’i, rheumatic fever not only cut short a promising rugby career, it nearly cost him his life.

At 24, the former Wellington and Highlanders back had had heart surgery twice, most recently in March 2014 when he was given a 50/50 chance of survival.

‘‘Even before surgery my aorta could have burst at any time,’’ Popoali’i said.

‘‘It was like blowing up a balloon. If you keep blowing, it will pop.’’

Popoali’i’s aorta was replaced and one heart valve is now made of metal.

While his heart is functioning properly, he will require daily medication and blood thinners for the rest of his life.

BBC