All Blacks tackle big issues
Sam Cane isn’t fearful of French retribution.
The All Blacks flanker was involved in a tackle during last week’s 52-11 win in Auckland that left France wing Remy Grosso with two facial fractures. Cane escaped a card of any sort while Grosso’s tour ended immediately.
The two teams reconvene at Wellington’s Westpac Stadium tomorrow, where Cane won’t be looking over his shoulder.
‘‘I hadn’t even thought of it until you said it there. I don’t mind anyway,’’ Cane said yesterday.
After all, it’s not in the nature of international teams to go headhunting on behalf of an injured teammate.
‘‘I think they’ll look to come out and improve on their performance [and] I’d be surprised if they were fuelled by something like that,’’ said Cane.
‘‘I don’t think we really would as a team, ourselves. We’d be focusing on how we can get aspects of our game better, to put out a better performance scoreboard-wise.’’
It wasn’t so much that Grosso was hurt last Saturday that upset people, particularly in Britain by the looks, but that Cane and team-mate Ofa Tu’ungafasi, who was the other man in the tackle, weren’t yellow or redcarded.
That was especially in light of a tackle on Ryan Crotty just prior, for which France lock Paul Gabrillagues was sinbinned. Gabrillagues appeared to collect Crotty around the chest but the way the All Black’s head rocked back suggested the contact had been higher.
‘‘I can’t really remember, to be honest. I just got up and got on with the next job,’’ Crotty said yesterday.
He certainly wasn’t trying to ‘‘sell’’ the incident as dangerous, to referee Luke Pearce.
‘‘I remember getting dominated. go slightly wrong. I can pretty much guarantee it’s never anyone’s intent to go out and cause any serious damage,’’ Cane said.
‘‘We’re talking split-seconds sometimes.
‘‘It’s easy when you look at it on the computer and when you slow the camera down and you go tap, tap [on the touchpad and say] ‘look, he could’ve done that’. When you put it back to full speed we’re talking about [snaps his fingers] bang.’’