{"id":59018,"date":"2025-08-11T11:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T11:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/59018\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T11:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T11:17:09","slug":"oli-mathis-reveals-why-he-missed-the-u20-world-championship-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/59018\/","title":{"rendered":"Oli Mathis reveals why he missed the U20 World Championship finals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There was a mysterious out before New Zealand\u2019s semi-final of the World Championship U20 against France, with one key piece of the puzzle missing for the Baby Blacks.<\/p>\n<p>Star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/new-zealand\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">All Blacks<\/a> Sevens youngster <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/oli-mathis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oli Mathis<\/a> was missing from the starting lineup after only making one appearance in the group stage of the 2025 tournament in Italy.<\/p>\n<p>Mathis, who has started the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/bunnings-npc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bunnings NPC<\/a> with a hiss and a roar, pulled out of the rest of the U20\u2019s tournament last month with delayed concussion symptoms.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on the\u00a0What a Lad podcast hosted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/james-marshall\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Marshall<\/a>, Mathis revealed to the listeners the cause of his injury.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt sucked, kind of had a delayed concussion, whacked my head in the maul, and afterwards I was just vomiting and whatnot, so yeah, no good,\u201d Mathis said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, so I didn\u2019t actually feel it till, well, probably 20 minutes after the game, and then just felt crook as I was actually getting a drug test.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI put my bag down, and then just couldn\u2019t remember where I put it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mathis what the process was like after he started getting the symptoms, and when he was ruled out of contention for the rest of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI probably gave it a few days just to let my head settle down, I told the doctor straight away.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo be fair, I wasn\u2019t that keen, but I thought, you\u2019ve only got one head, and I\u2019m not the smartest bloke regardless, so I thought I\u2019d better put my head first.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen, I just gave it a few days\u2019 rest, jumped on a bike and got my heart rate up, got real dizzy and started having pounding headaches, yeah, it was no good, so I had to get sent home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There have been countless discussions with rugby fans around where Mathis\u2019 best position going forward is, after playing both No.7 and No.14 for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/waikato\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Waikato<\/a> in the 2025 Bunnings NPC competition.<\/p>\n<p>Marshall asked Mathis where he thinks his best position is going forward, and the possibility of being a hybrid player.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLong term, I see myself playing seven,\u201d Mathis told Marshall on the\u00a0What a Lad\u00a0podcast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a mysterious out before New Zealand\u2019s semi-final of the World Championship U20 against France, with one&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-59018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}