Rugby Injury forces Franks from ABs
Prop may require surgery if spell on sidelines fails to heal Achilles tendon
All Blacks prop Owen Franks, a late withdrawal from the Bledisloe Cup test on Saturday, will miss the rest of the Rugby Championship at least. A flare-up of his Achilles tendon injury ruled out Franks starting against the Wallabies in Dunedin, with Nepo Laulala to wear the No 3 jersey, and Jeff Toomaga-Allen brought into the squad as cover.
The All Blacks and Crusaders have been managing Franks’ problem all year, with Steve Hansen revealing yesterday he was due to take the rest of the Rugby Championship off after Saturday.
“The poor bugger has been battling it all season, both with us and the Crusaders,” Hansen said. “This was always going to be his last game ... it’s just come four days early.
“It’s got to the point where we can’t manage it any more without it being detrimental to his performance.
“The injury has been described to me by the doc [Tony Page] as being similar to knotted hair but rather than hair, it’s his tendons. A conservative way to approach it is he continues training but obviously not as hard, and without the game load . . . and it should come right.
“If it doesn’t come right, then there is an operation they can do which is sort of combing the tendons.”
The decision to bring in Laulala and keep Ofa Tu’ungafasi on the bench was due to the latter’s potential to bring more impact around the field in the second half, Hansen said.
There will be an expectation on the All Blacks to be accurate from the start against a Wallabies team wounded from last week’s 54-34 thrashing in Sydney, but particularly in the final quarter.
“You have got to keep working, you have got to keep your attention on what you want to do rather than taking a big sigh and a breath,” Hansen said. “The opposition are going to keep working, so you have to, too. Our attention went to the scoreboard; as a result of that, we threw poor passes, our skill execution was poor, our defence was poor. There wasn’t too much that was good, really.
“They will be much sharper of mind and of body. They’ll be desperate because things in Australia — there’s a lot of negativity. They’ll be hurting, so that will make them even hungrier than they have been — they’ll be a very dangerous beast.”
Asked whether he expected Michael Cheika’s side to bring more “niggle” this week, like they did in the return Bledisloe Cup test in Wellington 12 months ago, Hansen said: “I would expect them to be a lot more physical than last week, yeah. There’s a good PC answer for you.”
Cheika made three changes to the team thrashed in Sydney. Samu Kerevi has paid the price for his poor defensive display and is out of the match squad, with Tevita Kuridrani replacing him at centre. Dane HaylettPetty, who has recovered from the bicep injury that kept him out of the first test, comes in on the left wing for last week’s debutant Curtis Rona, who drops to the bench.
Those were expected, less so the shock inclusion of lock Rob Simmons, dropped twice by Chieka last year, who pushed the dynamic Rory Arnold to the reserves.
Hansen revealed lock Sam Whitelock would give his No 5 jersey from Saturday’s test to the family of the late Sir Colin Meads following the passing of the All Blacks legend last Sunday. Meads wore No 5 47 times in his 55 tests. Hansen said the All Blacks also had another tribute planned, to be revealed on Saturday.