Scott Barrett returned to the international arena as if he never left in last weekend’s dominant win over Australia. However, the past 11 months have been far from smooth for the Crusaders lock, with an injury he describes as a “flat tyre” throwing a spanner in the works.

Prior to last weekend’s big Bledisloe Cup win at Eden Park, Barrett was last seen at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium last November. At the time, he was captain of the New Zealand national team under Scott Robertson. Much has changed since then.

The 32-year-old spent the first few months of 2026 on a non-playing sabbatical, but after initially planning to rejoin the Crusaders at the back end of the Super Rugby Pacific season, his return was postponed due to various “irritating” health issues.

At first, the problems seemed unconnected, but Barrett soon found they were.

“I had a bit of a sensation, it was probably the start of this year, just in my hip,” he explained on the All Blacks‘ Inside the Black Jersey podcast. “I just thought it was a tight hip. Then, we were on rowing machines, and we did a bit of running, and I felt this weird sensation, like my calf was cramping, and I couldn’t run.

“I was like, ‘What is going on here?’ And yeah, my calf just wouldn’t fire, so I went and saw the medics, and after that, I sort of developed all the sciatic pain stuff. Just sitting down longer than five minutes would be uncomfortable. A lot of people have dealt with that sciatic pain, but I guess the pain was one thing, but not having a calf firing was certainly limiting what I could do on the paddock.

“So yeah, I gave it about four weeks to try and settle on its own because sometimes bulged discs can sort of sort themselves out. But it was just sort of flatlining, if not getting a little bit worse.

“So, the specialists suggested the best thing for me as a rugby player and long term would be to have the procedure where they do a microdiscectomy: they shave away the disc that was putting pressure on the nerves, so it was almost like instant pain relief.

“And then it just gradually, over a period of four months, it was just getting the core strong again, and then two is getting the calf back because it had a bit of a deficit from not firing properly.

“So yeah, it was a wee sort of bump in the road, and you know, I was hoping to play the back end of Super Rugby, but wasn’t to be. And yeah, subsequently missed out on the opportunity to go to South Africa and be part of that tour, which was a huge occasion. But nonetheless, I’m back in the environment and just took the long way.”