The damage to All Blacks prop Angus Ta’avao’s upper left leg was so unusual his surgeon had only done similar repair jobs on a handful of occasions.
Ta’avao’s problems began when a Chiefs team-mate smacked into his limb during a contact drill just days before he appeared in the first-round Super Rugby game against the Blues on January 31.
Now, more than four months later, the 14-test front rower is still waiting to play his second first-class game of the year.
Initially the injury was diagnosed as a knee contusion and haematoma that would take around six weeks to heal.
However it turned out Ta’avao was in strife. He had actually torn his vastus medialis oblique, a quadriceps muscle on the inside of the thigh that attaches to the knee cap, and required an operation in Auckland on February 28.
“It (the muscle) didn’t fully tear off but the majority of it did,’’ Ta’avao said. “It is very rare, and that is probably why it took a while to really understand what it was.
“I think he (the surgeon) said he had only operated on about three people before (with similar injuries) and for a surgeon who is operating every day, to only come across a handful of them, it reiterated it was a rare injury.’’
The medical professionals discussed whether Ta’avao could avoid an operation, but as an athlete who relies on explosiveness and power to do his job his options were limited.
“So I went under the knife with a torn VMO and they stitched that back together, and I am on the road back now.’’
All Blacks and Chiefs team-mate Atu Moli required surgery after he was diagnosed with compartment syndrome and a haematoma in his upper leg in 2018, and doctors warned that as a worst-case scenario amputation may have been required.
Ta’avao said there was never any risk of him receiving such a drastic prognosis, and expects to make a full recovery.
“My one was quite different in that the VMO tore off the knee. I could still walk but when I ran when it was painful.
“The risk of him losing his leg or not playing at all – I didn’t have anything like that. I wouldn’t compare it to that, his was pretty gnarly.’’
Ta’avao’s hopes of rehabilitating the injury in the company of his fellow Chiefs squad members disappeared when New Zealand went into lockdown in late March because of Covid-19.
That forced the 30-year-old to make Zoom calls to his surgeon during his recovery process, and set-up a gym at home.
