Wales will be without Sam for a year
WALES are resigned to being without Sam Warburton for a further eleven months following his second operation since leading the Lions.
The WRU’s medical specialists have ruled out any international return before November next year, and Wales have no intention of picking him for their endof-season trip to Argentina.
They have written him off until next season in the belief that by then he will have recovered from the physical battering of a 79Test career launched more than eight years ago.
Out of action since playing a crucial leadership role in securing the Lions their historic draw in Auckland last summer, Warburton suffered his first setback in September.
Neck surgery having ruled him out of the Autumn series, he had planned to make a New
Year come-back for Cardiff Blues. That has now been scuppered by further surgery to cure a longstanding knee condition.
It wipes out any faint hope of the 29-year-old openside reappearing towards the end of the Six Nations and follows lengthy consultations with head coach Warren Gatland about taking the entire season off.
“Sam came home from the Lions tour drained by the sheer intensity of it all,’’ a Wales source told
The Rugby Paper. “He had an eight-week break but it was clear that he needed a lot longer than that.
“He’d gone through his pre-season stuff with the Blues when the neck problem stopped him in his tracks. It was evident then that the need for him to be completely refreshed, mentally as well as physically, would take a long time.
“He’s been nursing a damaged knee for some time and so it made sense to get that tidied up right away, just as it made sense for him to forget about this season and take the longgame view of being fit and firing for next season.’’
Warburton’s fearless expertise at the breakdown has taken a brutal toll over the seasons starting with a broken jaw in 2010. Over the last four years he has been hit by a dislocated shoulder, torn ankle ligaments, concussion, a fractured cheek bone, neck and knee surgery. He has kept bouncing back but the WRU, who pay the majority of his dual contract, have now intervened to protect the player.
They recognise that the career of the only man to lead the Lions through two unbeaten Test series can only be prolonged by taking him out of the line of fire until he is back in shape for what would be a third World Cup.
His absence clears the way for Blues’ team-mate Josh Navidi to showcase his ball-carrying power.