Auckland Blues lock reveals cancer battle

NEWS: Auckland Blues forward Cameron Suafoa has cancer and will take a break from playing after suffering fatigue from radiotherapy.

“I’ve recently been diagnosed with cancer,” Suafoa said, without disclosing details, in a video posted Sunday by the Blues on social media platform X.

“I’ve been going through radiation treatment for the last month and a bit.”

The 25-year-old lock has continued to take the field in Super Rugby this season after a tumour was removed from his back late last year.

Suafoa was a fortnight into radiation treatment when he started in the defeat against Super Rugby leaders Wellington Hurricanes on March 9.

He made his 20th Super Rugby career appearance a week later as a replacement in a win at the Waratahs in Sydney, just a day after one of his weekly radiation treatments.

“In the mornings, I am normally pretty good, because I just woke up, I’m full of energy,” he explained.

“It’s normally after 12 or one when I tend to decline, fatigue-wise. I get real tired easily,” he added, with the tiredness meaning he would have to take a break from playing.

“Right now, it is what it is. I can’t change the fact I am going through this.

“Hopefully I can come back from this fitter and stronger.”

Suafoa said he had been in a busy period of training, with full contact, when he was first diagnosed.

“Physically, I felt fine. Looking back on it, I probably wasn’t ready to admit, even to myself, that I was going through this. I guess I was in the denial stage,” he said.

“It was a few weeks before I told my family.”

The Blues are second in the Super Rugby table, five points behind the Hurricanes, who have a perfect record of seven wins.