The Highlanders have revealed a second significant injury following news rising halfback Dylan Pledger has been ruled out of the season.<\/p>\n
Another pocket rocket, fullback Finn Hurley, is out for six to eight weeks with a foot injury.<\/p>\n
Rookie sensation Pledger has been ruled out of his debut Highlanders season with a serious knee injury.<\/p>\n
The dynamic halfback suffered a complete rupture of his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) during a training session.<\/p>\n
A rehabilitation period of up to 12 months means he will be scratched from both the Highlanders and Otago squads this year.<\/p>\n
It is a devastating blow for Highlanders fans \u2014 indeed, all followers of Super Rugby eager to see the next big thing \u2014 hoping the wondrously talented Pledger would get a chance to shine at the next level.<\/p>\n
The King\u2019s High School product has been on a remarkable tear of form that included two sparkling campaigns with the New Zealand under-20 team before a breakthrough NPC campaign with Otago.<\/p>\n
At 20, he is already being widely talked of as an All Black in waiting, and with good reason.<\/p>\n
That goal, and before that his goal of experiencing Super Rugby for the first time, will now have to wait.<\/p>\n
“Incredibly disappointing to get a season-ending injury, as I was very excited about my first full season as a professional,” Pledger said.<\/p>\n
“I guess I have learned early that part of being a professional rugby player is dealing with injury.<\/p>\n
“My 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.”<\/p>\n
The Highlanders would have benefited from Pledger\u2019s lightning-quick pass, electric running game and rugby smarts, but at least they have plenty of depth at halfback.<\/p>\n
Two-test All Black Folau Fakatava feels like the forgotten man but he is loaded with experience and talent and must still be in the wider frame for national selection in a busy year.<\/p>\n
His back-up will be talented Taranaki utility Adam Lennox, while the likely replacement for Pledger as a third option is Southland halfback Nic Shearer, a member of the wider squad.<\/p>\n
Hurley has had a wretched run with injury.<\/p>\n
He announced himself on the Super Rugby stage with a sparkling performance for the Highlanders in a win over the Blues last year before suffering a quadriceps injury.<\/p>\n
Hurley did not play for the Highlanders again, and he was limited to two appearances for Otago at the end of the NPC season.<\/p>\n
His latest injury is a foot sprain and he is wearing a moon boot while his recovery gets under way.<\/p>\n
The Highlanders\u2019 No 1 fullback is Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens with cover provided by youngster Stanley Solomon and possibly sevens recruit Andrew Knewstubb.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Highlanders have revealed a second significant injury following news rising halfback Dylan Pledger has been ruled out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-230258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}