Cullen Grace, the Scarlets' marquee summer signing, has opened up on his injury ordeal, revealing he is targeting a return to action in December. The All Blacks back-rower has not played since August 30, 2025, but is set to arrive in Llanelli on October 28 as he steps up his bid to make his long-awaited Scarlets debut before the end of the year.
Grace's injury ordeal
Grace ruptured his patellar tendon playing for Canterbury when he stretched to take a pass. "I ruptured my patellar tendon, which I didn't realise you could do," Grace told Stuff. "I had never heard of anyone doing it before I did it. I thought I'd broken my knee cap when I looked down at it because there was a bit of a hole in my knee."
"It's definitely been the longest injury I've ever had, it's been a bit different being away from the game for this long. We initially aimed to be back roughly around the recovery time [six months] Cam had with his knee, but it just didn't end up happening that way."
'Leap of faith' signing
Grace admits the Scarlets have taken a punt in signing him. "I was negotiating with them when I was injured, freshly injured," he told Stuff. "I think they took a leap of faith in signing me. So I'm definitely keen to repay them. I think it's an exciting opportunity because I get to go somewhere and prove myself again."
"There might be a couple of people who know who I am, but I'd say I am just going to have to go over there and prove myself to the players and coaches and earn that respect again. I've literally come straight out of school, Canterbury, Crusaders, Rugby Park every day, so it will be a nice refreshing change, I guess. There will definitely be stuff I miss but it will be nice to experience what they do and how they go about playing rugby."
Lancaster criticises maul law change
Former England coach Stuart Lancaster has criticised the law amendment that has placed a greater emphasis on the driving maul. 32 tries have been scored from driving lineouts in the URC in the opening three weeks, with Lancaster's Connacht one of four sides yet to cross the whitewash with a maul. Instead, the Galway province have struggled to get to grips with World Rugby's directive for referees to clamp down on players 'swimming' up the side of mauls.
Glasgow scored four tries against Connacht in that area on Friday night, with Lancaster warning the game could become one-dimensional if attacking teams are held to a similar scrutiny by officials. "If you took the Dragons and the Ospreys game and you took Leicester and Gloucester as two benchmark teams for the Premiership and the URC as well, I think there must have been 12 or 13 maul tries scored," said Lancaster. "So, clearly, the new directive has changed things in favour of the attacking team."
"We had a meeting, actually, the day of the game with the URC [referee] manager, Tappe Henning, and we brought up a number of things for discussion, one being that element and making sure that when the maul is getting refereed, referees are looking at both sides; as in, are the attacking team sealing off to prevent a fair competition? Are the players leaving the line early before the ball is thrown to get a material advantage? Are the backs joining the maul before they're allowed to? And when they are joining, are they joining in front of the ball or in the required place?"
"I'm not giving out about our game [against Glasgow], because it happened - I've named two games it happened 13 times in. If we're not careful, then we'll end up in a situation whereby the game will come down to a penalty in and around the 22-metre line or the halfway line, which leads to something that's very hard to stop. So, but we can't control the directive that's been given from World Rugby. What we can control is not giving as many penalties away and being better at defending it."
"Obviously, a lot of work has been discussed about how we can reduce our penalty count. Some are controllable, some I thought we were a bit unlucky on, if I'm being honest." On his side's efforts at stopping the maul against Glasgow, he added: "Without stating the obvious, it's all stemmed from one aspect of the game, which was the rolling maul. We need to be better at defending that, number one, and number two, not presenting so many opportunities for teams to kick into that position, which is down to penalty count. What do we need to improve? We need to improve our discipline and we need to improve our setpiece and particularly defence of the driving ball."
Hughes ready for Champions Cup challenge
Cardiff hooker Daf Hughes says he is ready to test himself against one of Europe's best as the club visit Northampton Saints at DPD Stadium at Franklin's Gardens on Sunday. The Blue and Blacks find themselves back in Europe's top tier this season, having finished in the URC play-off places last year.
"I'm really excited," said Hughes. "You don't really get many of these opportunities in your career to go and play in such big games," he said. "You've got to go up against the best to see where you are as a team as well. We're excited to go against them, see how they can go against us, and it's a measure of ourselves as well."
With Northampton having shown their attacking prowess during their 71-48 victory over Bath, there could be a temptation for Cardiff to turn to the driving maul - given how much of a weapon that has been in the URC this season. However, Hughes insists Cardiff will continue to play their own game at DPD Stadium. "We've definitely got our own game that we want to play and want to put on the pitch," Hughes said. "If we do get the opportunities through the penalties, we're going to have a crack at it, but we're also going to put our game on the pitch, the way we want to play and the way we want to go after Northampton."
