Nearly two months after winning the World Rugby Men’s 15’s Breakthrough Player of the Year, Wallace Sititi is set to miss some time for the Chiefs as they start their 2025 Super Rugby Pacific campaign.
Sititi was picked for the All Blacks in Scott Robertson’s first squad of 2024 back in June, making his debut off the bench against Fiji.
Chiefs head coach Clayton McMillan comfirmed to media today that Sititi has an ongoing knee injury that requires surgery, which could see him miss most, or worse case, all, of the Chiefs’ Super Rugby Pacific campaign.
The knee injury was sustained at some point during the end-of-year Northern Tour, where Sititi further established himself as one of the brightest young players in World rugby.
“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 McMillan.
“He’s able to walk around, so it’s one of those little niggles that you never really truly know the extent of until you get under the surgeon’s knife and they can give some clarity to that.
“It happened on the end of year tour and it’s taken a while to get to this point, because he just hasn’t had the surgeons available to be able to operate on.”
Sititi is returning from an off-season holiday and will have knee surgery on Friday.
The loss of Sititi for any amount of time will be a huge loss for McMillan, ahead of the upcoming Super Rugby season that starts on February the 14th with the Crusaders taking on the Hurricanes in Christchurch.
“A huge loss, everyone’s seen how he’s played over the last 12 months and it’s never nice to lose players of that calibre,” the Chiefs head coach said.
“He generates a lot of excitement for his ability, we’ll miss him, and all we can do is jump in behind the young man and help with his rehab, however long that takes, and get him back out on the field as quickly as possible.”
It could give young U20 New Zealand powerhouse loose forward Malachi Wrampling a shot to replace Sititi, as well as more experienced options in Simon Parker or Kaylum Boshier. The Chiefs start their campaign on the 15th of February when they take on the Blues in a 2024 final rematch.
