The All Blacks have lost a third player from their Rugby's Greatest Rivalry tour of South Africa, with wing Caleb Clarke flying home for shoulder surgery a week out from the first Test against the Springboks at Ellis Park.
"Caleb Clarke will be returning home from South Africa, after scans revealed he ruptured a tendon in his shoulder during Tuesday night's game against the Sharks," New Zealand Rugby said in a statement. "All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie said an injury replacement will not be called in at this point."
The 27-year-old Blues wing will need an operation, with no return timeline until the procedure is done. He follows centre Billy Proctor, who went home with a serious shoulder injury, and hooker George Bell, whose calf problem ended his tour early and brought Bradley Slater into the squad. Richie Mo'unga was called in as Proctor's replacement — a specialist No.10 for a midfielder, a swap that raised eyebrows and which Rennie defended as the logical call given Damian McKenzie's ankle and the squad's reliance on 10s to cover fullback.
The bigger question for the August 22 opener is Will Jordan. New Zealand's most potent finisher has not played a minute of the tour, missing the Stormers and Sharks matches with a back injury and being left out of the matchday squad for Saturday's game against the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld. Rennie says he is close, but not there.
"We need to get decent training into him and a decent training week next week," the coach said.
The original plan had been to give Jordan minutes against the Sharks in Durban, a match the All Blacks won 54-0. "When he wasn't good for that, we thought we'd play him and even give him some game time this week," Rennie said. "But he's not quite right, but he's definitely better."
Jordan, who has 51 tries in 57 Tests and passed Doug Howlett on New Zealand's all-time list with a hat-trick against Italy last month, also missed the back end of the Crusaders' Super Rugby Pacific campaign with a calf issue. Management remain reasonably confident he will be available at Ellis Park.
There was better news on scrum-half Cam Roigard, a late withdrawal from the Sharks squad with a calf niggle. "The plan was just to give him maybe 30 minutes off the bench and then he just pulled up a little lame," Rennie said. "We're pretty confident he'll be right for the first test. He's played a lot of rugby this year."
Hooker Codie Taylor and tighthead Tyrel Lomax have both recovered — from a calf and a leg problem respectively — and start against the Bulls, their first outing of the tour.
Assistant coach Tana Umaga has been careful not to let the midweek results settle anything. "Look, nothing's set in stone at this stage and everyone's got an opportunity," Umaga said. "We came over with teams already set in place so that everyone got that opportunity to push their case. Already there's been some guys that have really pushed their case forward, and that's all we're looking for."
Umaga also flagged aerial work as unfinished business, praising his side's handling of the high ball against the Sharks while noting there is "still a bit of work for us to be done around tap-backs and picking up scraps" — an ominous gap to carry into a series against a South African side built to kick and contest.
Former All Blacks flanker Josh Kronfeld, meanwhile, has urged New Zealanders not to judge Rennie on the scoreline of a four-Test series against the back-to-back world champions in their own country.
"This deal that Rens is having to roll with, it's a deal for the World Cup, it's building just for that moment," Kronfeld told the Rugby Direct podcast. "He's got two years to find a pathway, to find a way of building this team into something special."
"It's not super fair is it? But life isn't fair and that's what he's taken on board."
Not everyone is granting that latitude. Former Springbok prop Tendai Mtawarira expects South Africa to win all three matches on home soil, arguing the hosts have "too much firepower" up front and that their pack "will overwhelm the All Blacks", while conceding the tourists carry an agile backline capable of making opponents chase shadows.
That backline is now three casualties lighter, and its best finisher is still in rehab.
