The All Blacks have a potential crisis at hooker going into the first match of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Tour against the Stormers on Friday.
New Zealand have summoned reinforcements after a devastating training ground incident in Cape Town ruled out George Bell for up to six weeks. Bell suffered a calf injury during a training session, dealing a massive blow to their front-row depth.
Head coach Dave Rennie has called up Bradley Slater to join the 44-man squad, with the Chiefs man set to arrive in Cape Town on Wednesday.
“We are all gutted for George, to be ruled out of the tour so early,” Rennie said. “He’s had a frustrating past few months with injury, so it’s a real blow for him to have injured his calf again.”
Bell originally travelled as one of four hookers alongside Codie Taylor, Asafo Aumua, and Samisoni Taukei’aho. However, with tour captain Taylor currently nursing a calf niggle and expected to be rested on Friday, Slater could even feature at DHL Stadium against the Stormers.
The injury complication comes at an awkward time for Rennie, who intends to heavily rotate his squad across midweek fixtures against South Africa’s top franchises — the Stormers, Sharks, and Vodacom Bulls — before the first Test against the Springboks at Ellis Park on August 22.
It would be the smart thing to do, as former All Blacks head coach Steve Hansen has already warned that these provincial clashes will present a brutal physical challenge for New Zealand’s depth players.
“One thing about the midweek games you don’t fully understand until you’ve been involved is their job is to beat the sh*t out of the All Blacks,” Hansen said on the Rugby Unity podcast.
“They may not be Test players yet, but they want to be, so they’re going out to prove, ‘Hey, I’m good enough to be in your team, Rassie [Erasmus]’. They’ve got a mindset where they want to rip your head off, and if you don’t turn up with the right attitude, it becomes a difficult afternoon.”
Despite the early setback in the front row, Hansen backed Rennie’s overall squad selection for the historic tour, despite the notable omission of openside flanker Du’Plessis Kirifi
“I don’t think anyone was unfairly missed out,” Hansen added. “Everyone else has earned the right to be there, and it’s a pretty soundly selected side.
“Selecting a team sometimes involves more than just picking out-and-out specialists,” he explained. “I’ve got no doubt if they lost a specialist seven, they would pick up the phone.”
