Watch every second of Super Rugby Pacific live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nThe 31-year-old admits his return date is unknown as doctors try to identify the root of his problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that I probably carried throughout the back end of last year and had to get some professional advice over the break and got a couple of scans,” Alaalatoa told reporters as Rugby Australia announced a partnership with Castore.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe advice was just to take some time and make sure that it heals appropriately because I want to come back into employment 100% and try to contribute the best way I can.<\/p>\n
\u201c…I think what the scans were telling me was just the 13th year of playing footy at tight-head prop, so there’s a bit going on in there. I guess that’s why the professional advice was that it just needs time to heal. There are a number of things going on there. They couldn’t put their finger on one thing. Again, it was just from the position that I played over the course of my career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re trying to stay away from targeting around and probably just going off the field, [probably] not something that I’m used to. I always like having an end goal to try and get back.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me it’s just to take a few weeks at a time and just to see how I’ve been pulling up after each training and then if going well I can continue to increase my load.”<\/p>\n
The back injury plagued Alaalatoa throughout the 2025 Test season, starting just once on the Spring Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was probably most of the frustrating part towards the back end of last year,” he laments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like I probably wasn’t as effective as I could have been due to the body so I just want to make sure that I’m taking the time to get right so I can contribute the best way.\u201d<\/p>\n
It leaves the Brumbies without a host of experienced campaigners from last year, with Noah Lolesio, Tom Hooper and Len Ikitau among several to head overseas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s definitely going to be a great opportunity for some of those young blokes to step in,” Alalaatoa believes.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of them are probably going to get their [first] taste of Super Rugby, not just for one or two games, but to consistently stay in there and to get that experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had that Super Rugby AUS competition towards the back end of last year that a lot of them were playing in. I guess the way that our squad is looking, it’s just that time of the year where we’ve lost a lot of international experienced players but then again, you’re gaining a lot of younger guys who are keen to put the jersey on and to get the experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat transition is going to be good for us. It’s been a whole fresh new look for us throughout the Brumbies pre-season. But the energy is high and the boys are keen to hop in to the first trial next week and play well.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ACT Brumbies prop Allan Alaalatoa concedes the wear and tear of front-row will cause him to miss the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[58864,64,63,760,85,48013],"class_list":["post-431516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-act-brumbies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431516","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=431516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}