Injured Manawatu No8 hoping feeling returns

WARWICK SMITH/Manawatu Standard

REST AND RECOVER: Turbos No8 Brent Thompson, seen here training, is hoping a couple of weeks rest will help what feels like a pinched nerve in his neck.

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Turbos No8 and Manawatu player-of-the-year Brent Thompson is keeping his fingers crossed that they won't be beset by pins and needles for too much longer.

The 31-year-old Te Kawau loose forward has a sore neck after contact training as part of the Hurricanes Super 14 wider training group, so is now in rest mode.

"I can't do anything, can't run, because of the jarring on my neck," he said.

What feels like something pinching a nerve promotes the pins and needles feeling.

While it is similar to the injury, a bulged disc, that took him out of rugby for 18 months before he joined the Manawatu squad last year, he said it's not as acute.

"It happened two weeks ago doing wrestling and doesn't seem to be coming right."

He has had an MRI scan and will be visiting Auckland surgeon Peter Robertson, who previously operated on Thompson's neck which he injured while playing in Japan with the Suntory Sungoliaths club.

"I thought if I hurt it again it would be in a game of rugby," Thompson said.

"They [the Hurricanes] were trying to ease everyone back into contact."

He said the Hurricanes training had been going well because he had put in hard work over the summer and was fitter than ever.

He was looking forward to playing in the Hurricanes' first two pre-season games and would have started the game against the Blues at Mangatainoka last Saturday had he been fit.

"A couple of weeks' rest might do the job."

Thompson said he was stoked to be named Manawatu's player of the season from last year and Manawatu will want him fit for another Air New Zealand Cup campaign this year.

"I had been a bit worried about my form going into club rugby [last year]. But as you get older you seem to read the game more."

Had the Hurricanes not picked him up this year, he had told Manawatu sevens coach Paul Claridge he was keen to play the shorter game.

That could have had him playing in Fiji last week.

But then Hurricanes coach Colin Cooper came calling late in the piece after Thompson hadn't been invited to join any of the Super 14 squads.

"I was pretty keen to prove a point to them," Thompson said.

- © Fairfax NZ News