Savea may return early for Canes

Chin up Hurricanes fans. Amid the doom and gloom a ray of light has emerged around star All Blacks loose forward Ardie Savea.

It has not been the best of offseasons for the Wellington Super Rugby franchise, starting with influential first five-eighth Beauden Barrett deciding to sever his ties with the franchise and join the Blues on a souped-up four-year deal.

Then, just a few weeks back, their best player of 2019 and in many ways their life and soul, the dynamic Savea revealed that he was undergoing knee surgery that was set to rule him out for 5-6 months.

In revealing news of surgery to the knee he injured in the World Cup semifinal against England, New Zealand’s player of the year for 2019 said he was set to ‘‘miss the majority of the Super Rugby season with my Canes brothers’’.

That was set to leave the Hurricanes without their two most inspirational players of recent years for more or less the entire 2019 season.

The Wellington franchise, who won the competition for the first time in 2016, has made the semifinals or better for five

straight years. A sixth looked a forlorn prospect.

Then, to compound matters, when Ian Foster won the top All Blacks job for the next two years it emerged that highly respected Hurricanes head coach John Plumtree was to be part of his hand-picked support group as his

lead assistant. land promoted to the top job. But Plumtree, at his All Blacks announcement press conference in Auckland, has delivered much needed positive news for Hurricanes fans around the likely return to action of Savea in 2020.

‘‘His operation wasn’t as bad as they thought it was going to be, and we’re hoping he’s going to be right back into the Hurricanes setup in about three-and-a-half months,’’ Plumtree told Stuff.

Plumtree said early indications post a successful surgery was that Savea could be back around round 7 or 8 of the season, as long as his rehab went according to plan.

‘‘The Hurricanes are smart, they won’t rush him back if he’s not right,’’ added Plumtree.

‘‘Initially it was looking close to 5-6 months which is close to season ending. But it’s not going to be that long.’’

Holland’s assessment of Savea’s injury was slightly different yesterday.

‘‘There’s no set in stone prognosis, but it’s better than what was expected.’’

‘‘In April there we have our second bye [round 13] and we’ve aimed to get him back there, but it’s early days and we’ll take it week by week, but it’s way better than what was earlier thought.’’