Passing a head injury assessment and returning to the pitch in the second half, Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens scored a try early in the second stanza, but as the minutes ticked by, he got the sense he should not be on the field.
He told the team doctor he needed to come off. He would later learn that decision likely saved him from the injury potentially threatening his career and his long-term health.
“The nurses told me when I got into ED that it could’ve been so much worse.”
He went to the hospital the day after the match, after arriving back in New Plymouth; things progressed quickly from there after X-rays revealed the fracture.
“It was pretty scary, to be honest. It is a lot of the unknown and the importance of your neck in day-to-day life. When you get told that you’ve injured it, you never know what to initially think,” he says.
“There’s the rugby side of it, then there’s day-to-day life, like am I going to be able to walk? Am I going to be able to do normal things? And being told I’m going to have two surgeries on it in the one week was a bit scary.
“I definitely had my moments in the hospital bed just thinking, man, what does that mean for my career? Obviously, the season was done, but that unknown for me before the surgery was quite tough.”
Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens had a strong network around him, including his partner, who travelled to New Plymouth, and his mother, who works at the hospital.
“I was in pretty good hands and they were the ones who kept my head screwed on. Well, it wasn’t really screwed on.”
After two surgeries, he was given a timeline of six to eight months before he could return to rugby. Immediately, he set his targets on the former.
Rehabilitation from a neck injury was a long, arduous process for the 23-year-old. For the first eight weeks, he lived in a neck brace, only taking it off when he showered.
“Sleeping with it on took some getting used to.”
After that point, the focus went on getting movement back, doing a lot of exercises around turning and moving his head up and down.
He was not allowed to run and had to try and keep walking to a minimum, so did what he could to keep fit on an exercycle.
In January, he was able to move back to Dunedin to link up with his teammates at the Highlanders and continue his rehab there, doing a lot of his work alongside fellow outside back Jonah Lowe who was working his way back from an ACL injury.
“They were quite good letting me stay in Taranaki at home, giving me things to work on. It was slow at the start, then when I came back [to Dunedin] in January, that’s when the reality settled in that I was looking good and the progress I was making was quite good in terms of getting back out on the field.”
In February – about four months after surgery – he was back to running. Having not run in months his lungs “weren’t all good” but he otherwise felt fine. Once that picked up, he was able to start putting more weight into it to strengthen it.
During his recovery, Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens couldn’t help but think of what would be next for him after rugby, which saw him buy a camera and a lens and uncover a passion for photography and media.
“They always preach it, that you’ve got to have a back-up plan because you never know what could happen, and I was always thinking rugby will always be here until I retire, but you can never control these kinds of injuries
“I definitely thought for a second, like, man, is that it for my career? So having that back-up plan made me think like, it could literally be done on that, so I’ve got to get something under my belt.”
But that will remain a hobby for the foreseeable future.
His journey back to the field went without setbacks and last week, after six months of recovery and one appearance at club level, Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens made his Super Rugby Pacific return with the Highlanders in a 43-20 win over the Fijian Drua in Dunedin.
Starting at fullback, he picked up right where he left off in 2024, playing the full 80 minutes, running for more than 100m on 12 carries, assisting on three tries, providing a kicking option and making a couple of tackles.
“It was always the game that I wanted to come back and that was six months from when I had my surgery, so to go through the emotions that the game came with and the pressure and everything, it genuinely felt like I was back home,” he says.
“There’s obviously a little bit of the unknown. You never know in rugby where you could end up.
“Someone could put you on your head or you could just get into a pretty niggly situation, but the work that I’d done gave me good confidence to go into the game. The S&C crew and myself had been working on pretty much full contact for three or four weeks before the game, so the confidence was up.
“The confidence came pretty early in the game. I just wanted to get that first carry and get that first tackle out of the way so I didn’t have to think about it during the game, which happened.”
As soon as the six-month timeline was put on the table, he did everything he could to hit that mark and be able to feature in the Highlanders’ campaign.
Now, he has the opportunity to play in at least seven matches for the club as they try and work their way into the playoff picture.
Currently seventh with a 3-5 record, the Highlanders have potentially the toughest run home of anyone in the competition, with their last six games seeing them meet every New Zealand-based team, including the Chiefs twice.
“I’d love to play finals footy. Obviously, the end goal for any team is to win the competition. We haven’t got the results that we wanted.
“I know we came back from Australia pretty disappointed with the results, so I think to myself, what better way to live out each week than having our back against the wall,” he says of his goals for the season.
“I’d love to be a part of the Landers team this year that goes to the top six and really competes for the Super Rugby title. But, man, just being back out there on the field is a massive win for me regardless of any result.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.
