Italy's Rugby World Cup prop Martin Castrogiovanni - a tough man described by the All Blacks as a "nightmare" opponent and a future team-mate of Dan Carter - has had a tumour removed from his back just days after his team exited the tournament.
Castrogiovanni, Italy's most capped player with115 tests and the man who almost prematurely ended Wyatt Crockett's All Blacks career in an infamous test in 2009, took to Facebook shortly after his operation on Tuesday to post a photo of himself smiling in his hospital bed, and added: "All good!!!"
Martin Castrogiovanni, centre, poses for a picture after surgery. Photo / Facebook
Castrogiovanni, who turns 34 tomorrow and plays for glamour French club Racing Metro where Carter is heading after the World Cup, missed Italy's third pool match against Ireland with a sciatic nerve problem and tests found a tumour pressing on his fifth vertebrae.
Castrogiovanni pulled out of the remainder of the World Cup - his fourth - missing the Azzurri's final match against Romania.
Italy had already exited the tournament after failing to qualify from Pool D, which included Ireland, France, Canada and Romania.
Castrogiovanni has been Italy's first-choice tighthead for a dozen years, and plays for Racing Metro club.
He is widely credited for delivering one of the great scrummaging performances of recent times in destroying a rookie Crockett in a 2009 test match in Milan. Crockett was embarrassingly pulled from the match by coach Steve Hansen and replaced by John Afoa.
The experience proved a major setback to Crockett's All Blacks career. He was passed over for Afoa for the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand and it is now only at 32-years-old that the former national age group product is considered to have banished his demons from that day in Milan.
Wyatt Crockett was destroyed by Castrogiovanni in 2009. Photo / Getty Images
Crockett admitted at the time that Castrogiovanni had taught him a lesson. It's been a huge learning experience and without going through it, it would be hard to teach someone that," he said. "It's good to have that behind me now, and knowing how they do it there's a bit more confidence propping against guys like that."
