Wales full back Leigh Halfpenny suffered a horrible knee injury inside the opening minute of his 100th Test match appearance against Canada on Saturday.
The 32-year-old appears to have injured his ACL as he attempted a side step with his first touch of the ball at the Principality Stadium and immediately signalled for the physios.
Halfpenny was reduced to tears as he realised the extent of his injury, which will likely leave the Scarlets star out of action for several months.
This is horrible, but nobody can ever take Leigh Halfpenny’s 100 caps, 3 Lions tours, 827 points, or more importantly how much much he is loved by the whole of Wales away from him. How much noise a limited crowd was able to make for him just proved that.
— Squidge Rugby (@SquidgeRugby) July 3, 2021
This is not how Halfpenny would have wanted to celebrate his 100th cap for Wales and it rules him out of any potential call up to the British & Irish Lions tour in South Africa as injury cover.
Wales head coach Wayne Pivac said: “It was a shock to everyone, wasn’t it? Just under a minute into the game. He’s just stepped off one leg and tweaked the knee. We won’t know how bad it is until he gets that scanned and he’ll do that early next week.
“I had a chat with him after the game and no matter what it is, Leigh is a determined young man. He wants to play 100 games for his country, as well as 100 Test matches combined with those Lions ones.
“He’s still driven and he still feels he can offer something for his country. While he has that at the forefront of his mind, I have no doubt he’ll bounce back.”
Despite the injury to Halfpenny, Wales went on to win the game 68-12 and full match highlights, beginning with the injury, are available below:
Halfpenny has now earned 100 Test matches including four games for the British & Irish Lions across two different tours in 2013 and 2017, the first of which he was named player of the series and broke the Lions points scoring record on.
Sign In