Injury ward gives fringe props a chance to shine
The Star-Times examines the propping injury list and asks whether we have a problem on our hands.
This is so New Zealand rugby. What on the surface might appear to be a deeply concerning situation, bordering on a catastrophe, could actually turn out to be a game-changing positive. Crisis? What crisis?
Get this. Three weeks into New Zealand’s participation in the new season of Super Rugby, seven of the top nine Kiwi props would be unavailable should Steve Hansen have to name an All Blacks squad tomorrow because of long-term injuries, post-surgical rehabs or, in one case, imminent retirement.
First-choice All Black starters Joe Moody (shoulder) and Owen Franks (Achilles tendon), of the Crusaders, are both working towards April returns after surgeries at the back-end of last season.
And right now leading looseheads Atu Moli and Kane Hames (Chiefs) are also out injured, as well as top tightheads Jeffery Toomaga-Allen (Hurricanes) and Nepo Laulala (Chiefs).
Throw in Wyatt Crockett’s retirement from the international game and that’s a healthy swag of propping talent that is right now not available for the All Blacks.
Luckily for Hansen he doesn’t have to pick a squad for another three months yet, and by then he figures on having a good chunk of those inactive front-rowers back on the field.
But it certainly does raise the spectre of the carnage the modern game can serve up. The Chiefs, for goodness sake, have their five top props out injured, with Moli gone for the season with a quad problem and Laulala out two to three months with a broken forearm. Loosehead Mitchell Graham, too, is still working back after complications from the broken leg that wrecked his 2017 season.
Remarkably they’ve managed to dig deep into New Zealand’s outstanding nursery of rugby talent to find more than serviceable replacements.
Of the props who went on last November’s tour, only the Blues’ Ofa Tu’unagfasi is running out for his franchise. If Hansen was forced to pick a team tomorrow he’d be looking at unlikely types such as the Highlanders’ Daniel LienertBrown and Siate Tokolahi, the Hurricanes’ Ben May and Chris Eves, the Crusaders Michael Ala’alatoa and Blues’ Pauliasi Manu as potential options.
The big guy, though, isn’t concerned. He knows he’ll get Franks and Moody back in due course, and off well-managed preseason programmes.
Former All Black prop Kees Meeuws takes a glass half-full view of the prop injury situation.
What is it they say? What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.
‘‘Suddenly these talented players who haven’t had a lot of gametime are getting their chance, and that is going to boost their confidence and experience,’’ said the 42-test Dunedin-based prop.
‘‘So we’re actually going to end up, when all these players do get back from injury, with another wealth of experience and class players.
‘‘It’s a shame these guys are getting injured but it’s only going to broaden the strength of frontrow play and, who knows, we could have the next Carl Hayman come out of this group. Competition is great, and opportunity is even better.’’
In other words, suck up some short-term pain and enjoy some long-term gain.
‘‘Exactly,’’ adds the man they used to call ‘Bad News’. ‘‘Getting these guys out there playing consistent rugby for a long period of time, that’s gold for these young players.’’
It’s a scenario we have already been through to a degree at the back end of last year when Franks and Moody were ruled out. Far from imploding in their absence, the All Blacks brought in Hames and Laulala, promoted Tu’ungafasi, and never missed a beat.
‘‘Suddenly we were thinking, ‘wow, we’ve got talent in behind those top guys’, and what a lot of people don’t realise is there’s some talent behind those guys too,’’ adds Meeuws. ‘‘These injuries open doors for them to get experience and it’s only going to make them better rugby players and better scrummagers.’’
Of course, this being New Zealand, the next crop is already blooming. Tyrel Lomax at the Highlanders has massive potential, so too Alex Fidow at the ‘Canes. Meeuws likes the look of Marcel Renata who has been loaned by the Blues to the Hurricanes and described 109kg Landers loosie Lienert-Brown as a clinical technician who demonstrates palpably you don’t have to be supersized to be super effective.
World-class props, of course, don’t grow on trees. But in New Zealand you wouldn’t know it.
The architectural draft student is based in Colorado for the majority of the year but when home he spends his time between his home town New Plymouth and the mountains near Wanaka.
Before a motocross accident in 2009, which left him in a wheelchair, he was a builder and cabinet maker and represented Taranaki in age group rugby.
Peters says that he took some time to get over the accident before taking up skiing. But his advice to others is to ride that out and make a new plan, because life isn’t over.
‘‘You need to adjust to a new life from there, as there comes a point when you have to sort of get your head around it. Life’s not going to stop for you, it goes on. You can choose to sit and dwell on it or choose to move on and do good things.’’
Meanwhile, Dunedin’s Adam Hall was fifth in the men’s standing downhill alpine ski event.