A key New Zealand loose forward will undergo belated knee surgery on Friday.
Wallace Sititi suffered the injury during the All Blacks’ 2024 end-of-year tour and is set to miss at least part of the Super Rugby Pacific season for the Chiefs.
“I guess the fact that he’s got to have surgery gives you an indication that it’s reasonably serious, but we don’t know how serious at this stage,” said Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan, who also didn’t know how the injury occurred.
“I couldn’t tell you, to be honest. He hasn’t been in our environment, so we just know it happened on the end-of-year tour, but he’s able to walk around.
“It’s one of those little niggles, I guess, that you never really truly know the extent of until you get under the surgeon knife, and they can give some clarity to that.”
McMillan said it had taken two months for the surgery to take place because Sititi “just hasn’t had the surgeons available to be able to operate”.
The then 21-year-old starred for the Chiefs in their run to last year’s Super Rugby Pacific final and made his debut for the All Blacks against Fiji in July.
Sititi went on to earn 10 Test caps and win the 2024 World Rugby Breakthrough Player of the Year award.
Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images
