Dave Rennie will name his first All Blacks side to face the Springboks on Thursday, and the position he least wanted to worry about has become the one he cannot stop talking about.
Cortez Ratima, who has covered the bulk of the No.9 minutes on the Rugby's Greatest Rivalry tour, was sent for a scan after injuring himself in Saturday's 50-19 win over the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld. The result showed a posterior cruciate ligament injury. New Zealand have called Noah Hotham into camp as cover, and Rennie conceded on Monday that his squad is "a little bit thin at nine".
"We're going to see how it is over the next 48 hours," the head coach told reporters, adding that Hotham's arrival was at least a straightforward call. "We've still got KP [Kyle Preston] if Cortez was no good, and would need Noah to play on the Tuesday. So yeah, look, good to get him in. He's excited."
The complication is that Cam Roigard, comfortably New Zealand's best halfback, has not played a minute in South Africa. A tight calf ruled him out of the Sharks match in Durban after he had been named on the bench, and he has not featured for the national side since the Nations Championship win over Ireland a month ago. Rennie is not treating that as a problem.
"We expect Cam to be ready to go in the weekend," he said, arguing the enforced break may work in the 25-year-old's favour. "Cam's played a hell of a lot of rugby this year, so him not playing so much lately is not a bad thing."
Speaking earlier, before the Bulls team was named, Rennie had explained how the injury happened in the first place. "With Cam Roigard, the plan was just to give him maybe 30 minutes off the bench, and then he just pulled up a little lame."
Roigard is not the only fitness question. Will Jordan, New Zealand's record Test try-scorer, has a back niggle and is also yet to play on tour, while Damian McKenzie rolled an ankle against the Sharks and played on for roughly 15 minutes before leaving the field. After the Bulls win, Rennie put all three in the same bracket, with a caveat.
"Both Will and Cam got through a bit of training yesterday, and we're pretty confident they're going to be right by next week," he said. "Like both of them, we want to have a full week of training. So yeah, certainly ticking enough boxes and Damian's the other one who, yeah, like we're probably less confident about Damian, but still think he's a good chance to play on the weekend. [...] The expectation is that all three of those guys will be available."
Former All Blacks halfback Justin Marshall is less relaxed about what happens if Roigard starts and does not finish. Speaking on The Breakdown, he framed the real selection call as the one on the bench.
"They are very confident Cam Roigard is going to be fine to start the Test match but, when a player has been carrying a slight injury and not training like you usually would, there is this concern about your ability to last the full game," Marshall said. "That then puts pressure on the selection of who the replacement is should things go a little bit wrong, or that niggle resurfaces early in the game."
Marshall's answer, injury permitting, is Ratima over Preston — and his reasoning is caps rather than form. Preston is 18 months older, but Ratima has more than 20 Tests behind him and has played in South Africa before.
"When I think about that, the first thing that comes into my mind is I'm an advocate for who is playing the best and giving players opportunities, but in a place like Ellis Park, you've got to be very careful about being a bit green and I think that's where Cortez Ratima gets the nod for me," he said. "It's simply because he's played more Test matches, he's played across the world, he's been involved in South African games before whereas Kyle Preston hasn't."
Richie Mo'unga, flown in as injury cover for centre Billy Proctor, will not be part of the answer this week. "He arrived late last night, very excited and jumping out of his skin," Rennie said. "He's already done a fair bit of study, and we'll spend the next week with him getting his head around our game. We won't pick him in the first Test. He's a chance to get some game time against Lions."
For hooker Codie Taylor, who captained the side for the first time against the Bulls in his first outing back from injury, the value of three tour matches was in the ugly passages rather than the scoreline.
"I feel like there were a few times where the Bulls had us under pressure or down in our five we had a scrum, we reacted well to that and got out of our half with a penalty," Taylor told reporters. "There's going to be a lot of that in the Tests and for us to be able to galvanise as a group and nail those moments, it's going to pay dividends hopefully when it comes to Test week."
Taylor stopped short of declaring the pack ready. "By no means are we the finished product, there's going to be so much more we can work on and it's going to be even tougher come next week, but we can be really happy and confident with the steps we're taking."
The All Blacks arrive at Ellis Park on 22 August on a six-match winning run under Rennie, with three Nations Championship victories in July followed by wins over the Stormers, Sharks and Bulls. Both coaches name their sides on Thursday.
