Injured All Black Quinn Tupaea shares injury update

Injured All Blacks and Chiefs midfielder Quinn Tupaea has shared a positive update on his recovery from an ACL injury.

After making his Test debut against Tonga at Mt Smart Stadium in 2021, Tupaea became a regular member of the All Blacks under coach Ian Foster.

But the 23-year-old had just found his feet in the Test arena when his season was cut short against the Wallabies.

Looking to clean Tupaea out of a ruck in last year’s Bledisloe Cup clash in Melbourne, Wallabies lock Darcy Swain hit the All Blacks midfielder around the knee.

Tupaea fell awkwardly, and had to be helped from the field at Marvel Stadium. The incident was nothing short of disastrous with the Rugby World Cup about 12 months away.

Earlier this year, Tupaea told 1News that he was “still pretty angry” about the incident – but a return to rugby beckons for the exciting talent.

“In the last two weeks I’ve started some change of direction stuff and it’s going really well,” Tupaea told SENZ The Run Home.

“I’m just below sprinting pace and doing swerves and cuts and steps and ticking up about six or seven kilometres every second day so I’m pretty happy with where my knee is tracking.

“It’s in a good spot at the moment.”

Tupaea is expected to miss off all of this year’s Super Rugby Pacific season with the ladder-leading Chiefs.

While the midfielder has been left to watch on from the sidelines, the Chiefs have started their season with a perfect nine wins from as many games.

Tupaea won’t have a lot of time to state his case for selection ahead of the Rugby World Cup, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to rush his recovery.

“At the moment my return is around July 10, so if it’s a couple of weeks after that or a month after that I think it’s going to be Waikato pre-season,” he added.

“That’s sort of what I’m aiming for at the moment, but (there’s) no real rush and no earlier than that date.”