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Covid-19 has impacted the Hurricanes, a Super Rugby Pacific team.
Chris Gibbes, Hurricanes assistant coaching coach, confirmed that an undisclosed amount of their Super Rugby Pacific squad tested positive for Covid-19.
The Hurricanes will play Moana Pasifka, a newcomer to Wellington’s Sky Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Asafo Aumua, Hooker, was forced to withdraw from last weekend’s 21-14 victory over the Highlanders. Gibbes confirmed that he was sick but refused to confirm whether Aumua had tested positive.
SKY SPORT
Ardie Savea’s team celebrates their return home with a win against the southern men.
Gibbes stated that the Hurricanes did no train Monday.
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Gibbes stated that Covid is present in the environment. I cannot confirm this, but that it is there and we are working hard to manage it.
We’re ready to take on these guys next weekend, so that’s what we focused on.
We can control what we can do to keep our bodies healthy and we are doing all we can to make that happen.
We knew it was coming, and we prepared well for it. From an organisation perspective, we only need to ensure that we can get a team out this weekend and get our performance up again.
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Asafo Ahua, Hurricanes hooker was absent for Saturday’s game against the Highlanders because of illness.
Aumua was ruled out of Saturday’s Highlanders clash so Raymond Tuputupu, a teenager from Palmerston North, had to make an emergency four-hour kickoff run to ensure that the Hurricanes had enough coverage.
He made an unexpected debut at the end of the game. He had never played in Super Rugby Pacific, let alone the NPC.
He’s a young, developing player. He was in this pre-season environment and we’ve been watching him closely for quite some time.
Other options for men that we had were not tested positive for Covid meant that we could not choose from other men. This was a blow to the prospects of bringing in people from the outside.
Raymond was fit and ready to go, so he drove down the highway to get his Hurricanes cap.
Jamie Booth, halfback for the sideline, was another late omission. He had been named in the starting team on Wednesday. However, coach Jason Holland explained after the game that Booth had hurt his knee during training.
TJ Perenara (Cam Roigard, Booth) were unavailable so Richard Judd got a start at the No. Logan Henry was promoted from the bench to the No. 9 jersey and as the fifth-choice halfback Logan Henry.
Henry, like Tuputupu was given a run towards end of second half. He scored the decisive try after a break by Peter Umaga-Jensen and secured back-to-back wins.
We are proud of the fact that they were called in.
It could happen again. However, we are adapting and being as agile possible.
Gibbes claimed that captain Ardie Savea suffered a knock to the knee during the game, but they wouldn’t know the full extent until later in the week. Both Lock Caleb Delany (left) and Billy Proctor (right) were also suffering from niggles.
These New Zealand games are huge in terms of physicality. It takes a lot from the body. However, it usually takes us a while to understand who is going to be there or not.
New Zealand had 17,522 community cases on Monday
