{"id":407138,"date":"2026-01-11T23:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T23:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/407138\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T23:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T23:21:08","slug":"super-rugby-pacific-dylan-pledger-to-miss-highlanders-campaign-after-acl-rupture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/407138\/","title":{"rendered":"Super Rugby Pacific: Dylan Pledger to miss Highlanders campaign after ACL rupture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIncredibly disappointing to get a season-ending injury, as I was very excited about my first full season as a professional,\u201d Pledger said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I have learned early that part of being a professional rugby player is dealing with injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy energy now will be put into rehabbing as best I can so I can come back in the best possible shape. I will be able to focus a bit more on my study too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pledger was a surprise omission from the All Blacks XV squad last year, with coach Jamie Joseph opting to keep him at home to focus on his debut Super Rugby campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Joseph is also head coach of the Highlanders.<\/p>\n

Two-test All Black Folau Fakatava will likely assume the starting duties, with Adam Lennox serving as the backup, while Nic Shearer is part of the extended squad.<\/p>\n

The Highlanders face the Crusaders on January 30 in Timaru in their opening pre-season clash before hosting the Super Rugby Pacific season opener, also against the defending champions on February 13.<\/p>\n

Ben Francis<\/a> is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers breaking sports news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIncredibly disappointing to get a season-ending injury, as I was very excited about my first full season as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[56024,9490,64,63,22806,215804,35819,215803,135217,100092,1899,215801,58449,3899,6642,167957,10956,215800,212915,760,3207,215802,161,44161,85,1643,319,3605],"class_list":["post-407138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-acl","tag-after","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-been","tag-blow","tag-campaign","tag-dealt","tag-dylan","tag-halfback","tag-have","tag-highlanders","tag-huge","tag-injury","tag-knee","tag-miss","tag-pacific","tag-pledger","tag-promising","tag-rugby","tag-ruled","tag-rupture","tag-season","tag-serious","tag-sports","tag-super","tag-to","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}