Australia fullback Julian Huxley has been ruled out of the Tri-Nations decider against the All Blacks on Saturday after picking up an injury when he was playfully tackled by a teammate at a party.
The 27-year-old has played in all Australia’s six Tests this year in the absence of the injured Chris Latham, but will miss the Bledisloe Cup crunch match at Eden Park, Auckland after the high-jinx at the function in Canberra last Saturday.
Huxley said he was tackled as a prank by ACT Brumbies teammate Gene Fairbanks at a party following an awards night for his Super 14 club, and suffered a thigh injury. ”We were at a private function … and it was just a joke gone wrong and it turned out to be quite embarrassing,” Huxley told reporters on Monday.
”It’s really disappointing to miss the Test match.”
Huxley said he bore no hard feelings against Fairbanks and remained confident of making Australia’s World Cup squad.
Wallabies coach John Connolly, who had earlier described the incident as ”tomfoolery”, announces his squad for the clash on Tuesday and is set to replace Huxley with winger Adam Ashley-Cooper or revert to the recovering Latham.
Latham played a club match in Brisbane at the weekend for his first full contest since undergoing knee reconstruction surgery following a pre-season training incident.
Huxley’s calamity means the 72-Test veteran could be recalled to the starting XV sooner than expected.
”I’m now confident that I could go down to the Wallaby camp on Monday and fit into training,” Latham said on the Australian Rugby Union website.
”I know my body is right, I know that the knee will withstand everything that it needs to withstand with a Wallaby training run, so we’re just going to go from there.
”Like always, now it’s not up to me.” – Reuters