sickening head knock<\/a> suffered against the Reds.<\/p>\nA groggy Sititi was escorted from the field and taken to hospital early in the Chiefs’ 46-24 victory in Hamilton, after copping successive blows to the head in one incident.<\/p>\n
Sititi was hit in a high tackle from Lukhan Salakaia-Loto – resulting in a yellow card for the Reds lock – before clashing heads with teammate Sione Ahio.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old’s body shook involuntarily on the ground, something Chiefs captain Luke Jacobson later told journalists was among the “scariest” things he’d seen on a rugby field.<\/p>\n
A Chiefs social media post on Sunday featured a photo of a smiling Sititi giving the thumbs up from his bed at Waikato Hospital, before he was released to return home.<\/p>\n
“Hey Chiefs fam! Thanks for all your care and love for our guy Wally,” the Instagram post said.<\/p>\n
“He wanted to let you all know he is at home and feeling good, as well as sending his thanks to everyone for their love and support.<\/p>\n
“Scans at Waikato Hospital did not reveal any issues and he will be assessed and cared for through the concussion protocols.”<\/p>\n
There was considerable concern in the immediate aftermath of the match, with coach Jono Gibbes telling journalists it had detracted from a win which sent them through to next week’s home semi-final against the Crusaders.<\/p>\n
“The pride, the grit we showed and obviously the enjoyment of getting a result, it’s tinged,” Gibbes told reporters after the game.<\/p>\n
“It’s never nice to see one of our brothers in a situation like that but Wally’s where he needs to be now, with people that can help him. There’s a big part of us that are actually thinking about him right now.”<\/p>\n
Gibbes leapt to the defence of medical staff, who had been unable to stop Sititi from abruptly standing up during his onfield treatment.<\/p>\n
“They were dealing with a player in distress. It wasn’t a case of being able to strictly follow A, B and C,” Gibbes said.<\/p>\n
Concussion protocols mean Sititi, who has been in dynamic form for the Chiefs, won’t play in next week’s semi – a rematch of last year’s grand finalists.<\/p>\n
His return date to rugby is not clear.<\/p>\n
World Rugby’s 2024 breakthrough player of the year, he was probably in the sights of incoming All Blacks coach Dave Rennie, who names his Nations Championship squad in two weeks.<\/p>\n
Their opening test is against France on 4 July.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wallace Sititi after being injured for the Chiefs against the Reds. Photo: photosport The Chiefs have delivered a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-465523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465523","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=465523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Wallace](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/4JNG0D6_260606ChiefsReds_028_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n