All Blacks: Boric, Toeava eyeing surgery

Lock Anthony Boric has joined a growing list of All Blacks who will not make the June tests against Ireland. He has been told to rest his damaged neck until the Super 15 series takes a break towards the end of May when medical staff will evaluate how well he has recovered from the injury. If he is still struggling, Boric will have surgery which would take him out of the rest of the rugby season, like his teammates Jerome Kaino and Isaia Toeava. "That wait gives Anthony the chance of still coming back and playing for the Blues once the Super 15 resumes," team doctor Stephen Kara said. Boric will continue to train and sharpen his skills but he is not allowed to engage in any contact sessions for another two months. "He has an acute bulge on C5/6 which is central and indents on the spinal cord and that is the problem," Dr Kara added. "The options are surgery or rest, there are no magic drugs, no magic therapy." Toeava has decided to have surgery on his rare hip problem and will undergo an operation in the next few weeks. Two independent opinions recommended surgery as the only choice for the utility back which involves a bone graft, then six weeks on crutches and three months before he could resume some running. He would not be able to consider playing until about October. Toeava has had previous surgery to correct a bulge which kept pinching in his hip joint and now he had a stress fracture in the back of his hip which will not heal. "When they don't heal it usually has some tension which is pulling them apart so what they'll do is put a compression plate which will pull it together and they will do a bone graft at the same time."