{"id":360728,"date":"2026-04-02T19:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/360728\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:36:08","slug":"blues-player-cameron-suafoa-retires-after-terminal-cancer-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/360728\/","title":{"rendered":"Blues player Cameron Suafoa retires after terminal cancer diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cUnfortunately I won\u2019t be playing but I\u2019ll be going through a different type of battle soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old was first diagnosed with sarcoma – a rare form of cancer affecting the connective tissue of his back – in November 2023.<\/p>\n

Suafoa continued training and even played twice for the Blues while undergoing radiation treatment for six weeks between February and April in 2024.<\/p>\n

He was declared cancer-free in May 2024. <\/a>He played a total of six games in the Blues\u2019 title-winning season, while also featuring for North Harbour in the NPC.<\/p>\n

Suafoa established himself as a key player in the Blues squad in 2025, playing in seven matches before revealing in May the sarcoma had returned<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He underwent intensive surgery to remove the tumour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the surgery, they removed the tumour itself along with three ribs,\u201d Suafoa said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey had to shave down the spinal vertebrae and then yeah, fused my spine and it was I think originally it was meant to be like three or four hours and it ended up being nine hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pretty stubborn in terms of the recovery time. I was trying to leave the hospital as fast as I could and not understanding how severe the whole procedure was or how my body was reacting to it so there\u2019s a few times I fainted and ended up looking at the roof again.\u201d<\/p>\n

A heart-warming video of Suafoa <\/a>in hospital showed him celebrating the Blues\u2019 shock win over the Chiefs in their finals match last year.<\/p>\n

Last month, Suafoa married his long-term partner Britt Hastings-Kutty.<\/p>\n

While Suafoa has been unable to play this season, he was granted a medical dispensation to be involved with the Blues.<\/p>\n

He thanked everybody for their support over the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven just when I\u2019m walking around the stadium or going to get a coffee and people reach out,\u201d Suafoa said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve definitely appreciated everything like that, all the love everyone\u2019s shown. It means a lot and helps me get through some pretty pretty dark days.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he will continue to be the Blues\u2019 No 1 fan.<\/p>\n

Suafoa has made over 30 appearances for the Blues and North Harbour while appearing for the M\u0101ori All Blacks in 2022.<\/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":"\u201cUnfortunately I won\u2019t be playing but I\u2019ll be going through a different type of battle soon.\u201d The 27-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,33339,53314,2534,34088,796,19134,6099,114231,111,43,139,69,9617,6652,5389,213,190042,30331,1361],"class_list":{"0":"post-360728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-blues","10":"tag-cameron","11":"tag-cancer","12":"tag-delivered","13":"tag-diagnosis","14":"tag-forward","15":"tag-heartbreaking","16":"tag-loose","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-newzealand","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-player","22":"tag-retires","23":"tag-sarcoma","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-suafoa","26":"tag-terminal","27":"tag-that"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360728","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=360728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}