New Zealand sweating on injury concerns ahead of first test against Springboks
FILE PHOTO: Rugby Union – Autumn International – New Zealand Training – The Lensbury hotel, London, Britain – November 1, 2024 New Zealand’s Damian McKenzie during training Action Images via Reuters/Matthew Childs/File Photo
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Aug 16 : New Zealand coach Dave Rennie admitted on Saturday to some concern over the injury status of first-choice fullback Damian McKenzie ahead of the four-test series against world champions South Africa that starts in Johannesburg on August 22.
McKenzie has been struggling with an ankle problem that kept him out of the 50-19 victory over the Bulls in Pretoria on Saturday, but there is better news around wing Will Jordan (back) and scrumhalf Cam Roigard (calf), neither of whom have played for a month.
“Both Will and Cam got through a bit of training, we are pretty confident they’re going to be right for next week. Both of them we want to have a full week of training, but they’re certainly ticking enough boxes,” Rennie told reporters after the Bulls game.
“We are probably less confident about Damian, but still think he has a good chance to play. Hopefully he can train well on Tuesday.”
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There are several other bumps and bruises from the victory over the Bulls, the All Blacks’ third on their Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour of South Africa.
Prop Xavier Numia has a stiff Achilles and scrumhalf Cortez Ratima took a blow to the knee.
Rennie was pleased with a victory that has provided food for thought over team selection for the first test, though facing the Springboks will be a few levels up from their games on tour so far against depleted provincial sides still in their pre-season.
“There was a lot of good performances, I thought Pete Lakai was excellent until we took him off, Anton (Segner) was massive. Those guys are applying a lot of pressure (to start against South Africa),” he said.
“That certainly wasn’t our test side, so there will be a number of changes, but there was some really good performances that will put pressure on us from a selection point of view.
“What we know is that the intensity level and the quality that we are going to come up against next week is three, four, five-fold. But we’ve played reasonably well on tour and we know we need to up the ante.”
Source: Reuters
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