The All Blacks have lost another squad member ahead of their second Test against South Africa this weekend, with loose forward Anton Segner ruled out of the remainder of the series.
The 25-year-old has undergone minor surgery to wash out an infection in his ankle and will return home to New Zealand to continue his recovery. Having made his Test debut against Italy last month, he had featured prominently throughout the tour but will now play no further part.
No injury replacement
Head coach Dave Rennie has confirmed he will not be bringing an injury replacement into the squad at this stage, having already been forced into multiple changes due to injuries during the tour.
A statement from the All Blacks camp on Wednesday read: "All Blacks loose forward Anton Segner will return to New Zealand after being ruled out of the remainder of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour through injury. Segner has undergone minor surgery to wash out an infection in his ankle joint and will return home to continue his recovery. All Blacks Head Coach Dave Rennie confirmed an injury replacement would not be called into the squad at this stage."
Victory over the Lions
Rennie had confirmed the news in a post-match press conference after watching his side survive a scare against the Lions in Johannesburg, as they rallied to secure a 41-35 victory.
"Yeah, he [Segner] had a little bit of keyhole surgery, just the washout and infection," he said. "He won’t take part in the rest of the tour. Our feeling is now that we’re beyond the midweek games; we’ve got enough loose forwards to pick from."
The All Blacks were made to work hard for their win over the Lions, needing four unanswered second-half tries to come out on top after heading into half-time behind. Fighting back from an 18-point deficit, the tourists managed to keep up their unbeaten run, with Ethan Blackadder, Rieko Ioane and Emoni Narawa each scoring a brace of tries and Noah Hotham scoring another.
Character shown
Speaking after the game, Rennie praised the Lions for the way they pushed his side, but admitted he was happy with the character shown by his players as they look to back up last weekend's opening Test victory against the Springboks in Cape Town on Saturday.
"The Lions got off the fly at the start of both halves," said the All Blacks boss. "I think our boys showed a lot of character to fight our way back into that. We created so many opportunities. You look at the numbers, we dominated defenders beaten, line breaks, offloads, and so on. But we probably didn’t do the obvious enough.
"You’ve got to give credit to the Lions. They came to play tonight. They got off to a good start; they got the crowd into the game, and at 35-17 we’re under a bit of heat," he added. "So I was really pleased with the composure and our ability to grind out that last sort of 30 minutes and finish in front."
Patrick Tuipulotu, who captained the All Blacks side in Johannesburg, admitted that his team had been "pushed to the limit" by the URC side before grinding out the win.
"It was a really tough game," he said. "The Lions really brought it to us. They pressured us from the start and put us on the back foot. I’m happy we got there at the end. We got pushed to the limit and the Lions can be very proud of their effort."
