Ins and outs of super rugby

Injured Hawke's Bay Magpies and Highlanders Super Rugby prop Brendon Edwards

It was a case of good and bad news yesterday for two walking-wounded of Hawke's Bay Magpies and Super Rugby's the Highlanders as as the five New Zealand franchises named their squads for 2017 Super Rugby.

Back into the fray is midfield back Richard Buckman whose chances of becoming an All Black were probably ruined by a shoulder injury received in a pre-season match for the Highlanders against the Crusaders in February and which kept him out of rugby for most of the rest of the year.

Now 27, he was a significant loss this year the Magpies for whom he has played 70 matches. He has also played 33 in Super Rugby, mainly for the Highlanders, and recover from the injury has been getting the match-fitness back into shape with Panasonic Wild Knights in Japan's Top League competition.

But out is prop Brendon "Doogie" Edmonds, who suffered a possible career-ending knee injury playing his 24th match for the Highlanders in April.

At the age of 25, and who, like Buckman, grew up in Central Hawke's Bay, Edmonds was diagnosed with ruptured ligaments and was thus unable to add to 48 matches for Hawke's Bay, nor his Maori All Blacks history of three matches.

He suffered the injury playing for the Highlanders against the Force in Dunedin in April, and has returned to Dunedin to be closer to the doctors and other advice, saying last night he was keeping his "nose in the door" with hopes he will get back into the game.
"I can't really say too much now," he said, but it was because he has no idea whether he could be back on the field in a few months or if it could years.

Despite the middling form of the Magpies, which ended slipping from the Mitre 10 Cup premier division to the bottom-seven championship, there are still 14 Hawke's Bay-registered players with contracts for the new Super Rugby season which opens on February 23.

They are the Blues' Ihaia West, Chiefs Brodie Retallick, Michael Allardice, Brad Weber, and Sam McNicol, Hurricanes Ben May, Ricky Riccitelli, Mark Abott, Geoff Cridge and Hugh Renton, sole Magpies Crusader Israel Dagg, and Highlanders Ash Dixon, Gareth Evans, and Buckman.

Among the 2017 Super Rugby squad members is Hika Elliott, back for his 10th season with appearances in 115 Super rugby matches behind him.

The former Hastings Boys High School player had 73 matches for the Magpies from 2005 to 2012 and has since played his national provincial championship for Counties Manukau in 2013 and this year, Heartland division side Poverty Bay in 2014 and Taranaki in 2015.

Perhaps victims of the Magpies demise are wing and former New Zealand Under 20 representative Jonah Lowe and loose forward and new United States international Tony Lamborn, two of the better performers in the black-and-white hoops of Hawke's Bay this year.