Hotham out for rest of Rugby Championship with fractured fibula

Noah Hotham has been ruled out of the remainder of the Rugby Championship after undergoing surgery for a fractured fibula sustained early in New Zealand's 43-10 loss to South Africa in Wellington last Saturday. The 22-year-old scrumhalf fractured the bone in a tackle on Springbok lock Lood de Jager and will miss the All Blacks' final two matches of the tournament, both against Australia and both counting toward the Bledisloe Cup.

New Zealand Rugby said Hotham had surgery on Monday and would not feature in the home Test at Eden Park on September 27 or the concluding match in Perth on October 4. The governing body added that a recovery timeline was being assessed by its medical team. Hotham posted an X-ray on social media showing a clean break above his left ankle and later responded to fans to clarify the injury affected his opposite ankle from the one he had previously injured against France. "I was not rushed back," he wrote, praising coaches and medical staff and calling the setback "an unfortunate rugby injury."

The injury compounds a mounting crisis in the All Blacks' halfback stocks. Cam Roigard is sidelined with a foot stress fracture and Cortez Ratima is out with a broken...