Tamaiti Williams has provided the good news after a long time on the sidelines with a back injury. The talented All Blacks and Crusaders prop suffered what looked like a minor injury, but it proved to be a major one.
His injury allowed him fewer than 200 minutes of rugby for the Crusaders in 2026. Ot also ruled him out of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry as the All Blacks went to South Africa on tour.
With such a big setback, the talented 26-year-old prop held his hopes high and recovered well. After so long, he is back on the field training and looking ahead to the 2027 season.
TAMAITI WILLIAMS PROVIDES GOOD NEWS ON HIS INJURY
Speaking to Andy Rowe and Kieran Read on The Good, The Bad, & The Rugby, Tamaiti went into detail about his time recovering.
“Yeah, that was actually part of my rehab at [Rugby Park]. Walking up and down the gym because I’ve been stuck in a hospital bed for the last probably four months, so what happened was after round three, Super Rugby, I got suspended, and the next week I was in training, and I just thought I’d tweaked my back. I went and told the physios and the medical team, and then over the next week and a half, it got worse, and fast-forward, I ended up in hospital.” Tamaiti said.
“Doc had me on some meds, and when they started not working, I was like, ‘ Oh, bite down on the mouthguard a bit. But then I had a bit of an episode one night, and I was rolling around in bed, and 10 out of 10 pain, arguing with my wife not to go to the hospital. My mum gave me a call and said, “I want to call the police if you don’t go to the hospital. Pretty much ended up in the hospital. They weren’t too sure what was going on. It’s a bug called MRSA. It’s like a super bug. It’s like resistant to antibiotics,” he continued.
“So pretty much settled in my disc in my back, and yeah, ate away at my disc, really. I’ve got four screws in my spine, T12-L1. I had to get it fused. Have you ever seen, like, a tree on fire? How does the inside of the tree burn first? Yeah, pretty much what happened to my spine. One of the first things they told me was that I might be in a wheelchair, so we love rugby, right? But I like walking too. I was pretty lucky that it’s in my mid-back, but if it were in my lower back, it could have had different outcomes,” he explained.
“When I left the hospital, I was about 122 kilos, and because I was on such strong antibiotics, I couldn’t eat that much, and I was literally fading away. But my appetite’s coming back, and I can’t do much activity. Luckily, I can walk around in that now, so I feel like it’s going to have the opposite effect. Like, I’ve got to be real careful because starting to train, starting to eat more, but still not training hard enough. Yes, I have a pretty mean team, like a few doctors and surgeons. We don’t have a date, but it’s more like a six-week block of training, have some scans, and have another meeting. But I’m still on orals [antibiotics] till like mid-October. I think they’re giving me the okay to run around on day one of preseason. There’ll be a long preseason plan.” Williams said, leaving his fans positive and excited about his comeback.