Coles primed for provincial gametime

Dane Coles will front for his province before targeting the All Blacks’ final two games of the Rugby Championship.

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen confirmed the next step of the 56-test hooker’s injury comeback was to front for Wellington in the Mitre 10 Cup, with the aim of getting match fit in time to don the black jersey by the end of next month.

That would mean Coles, who has been sidelined by knee and calf injuries the past nine months, could front against Argentina in Buenos Aires on September 30 and South Africa the following week in Pretoria.

Coles is one of 29 All Blacks in the wider training group which gathered in Christchurch this week. Crusaders representatives preparing for Saturday’s Super Rugby final will join the squad next week, after Hansen names his 33-man squad for the Rugby Championship on Monday.

‘‘More than likely we will name him [Coles] so we can have access to him as the season goes on. But he will come back through the Mitre 10, and play various amounts of minutes there. Once he’s had enough rugby, he’ll come to us,’’ Hansen said.

‘‘We just need to get him fit, he needs to get a bit more intensity into his training and that’s going to take a wee while. We’ve just got to get him running fit so we can get the old Colsey back.’’

Wellington open their national provincial campaign against Otago on August 19, the first of eight games Coles, who has played 67 matches for the Lions, could feature in before returning to the All Blacks.

Midfielder Sonny Bill Williams took part in non-contact training yesterday but won’t play in the first two Bledisloe Cup matches against Australia due to the shoulder injury he suffered against France in June. He appears set to return against Argentina in Nelson on September 8.

‘‘He looks fit, he trained well this morning,’’ Hansen said.

The news isn’t so good for Chiefs tighthead prop Nepo Laulala, who broke his arm against the Blues in March.

‘‘Neps has just had a re-operation on his arm. It didn’t heal properly so he’s had to get a bone graft on that and he won’t be available now, possibly, everything going well, until the end-of-year tour.’’