All Blacks: Injury hits Weepu's test hopes

Piri Weepu walks off gingerly under the gaze of coach Graham Henry and trainer Dennis Shepherd (R). Photo / Brett Phibbs

Any plan for Piri Weepu to play for Wellington B this weekend ended when he damaged his ankle yesterday at a special All Black training camp.

Weepu's place in the All Blacks squad for the next Bledisloe Cup test on August 22 is now in jeopardy after he twisted his left ankle late in the session at Waitakere Stadium.

After some treatment from the medical staff, Weepu was assisted from the field in the only visible setback at the session. There were other difficulties, like the lack of lineout precision, but Weepu's injury was the most obvious concern.

Weepu, Jimmy Cowan and Brendon Leonard are all vying for places in the touring squad of 26 which Graham Henry will reveal on Saturday night after checking the health of all those playing in the latest round of the national championship.

The selectors have to juggle Weepu's injury worry with a few other uncertainties. They were probably sorting through the merits of five players they had to fit into two places.

Henry will also have to monitor the fitness of disgruntled utility Cory Jane and prop Neemia Tialata who have been dispatched to Wellington B after coach Jamie Joseph refused to rearrange his top provincial combination to accommodate the All Blacks.

Joseph has picked No 8 Rodney So'oialo on the bench against Bay of Plenty to cover a plague of loose forward injuries but he has refused to budge on the other All Blacks.

That policy angered Jane, who did not get a start last week against Hawkes Bay and whose repeat omission this round had him searching for alternative games.

"I'd prefer to stay in Wellington but if I didn't have the Wellington Bs or anything to play for, then we all talked about being loaned to somewhere to get some game time," Jane said yesterday.

"We've got a game this week for the Bs, but the boys are still thinking about that [being loaned]."

Wellington Rugby Union chief executive Greg Peters understood Jane's anxiety but defended Joseph's policy to prepare players for the entire campaign.

Asked about the impasse, Henry refused to get involved in the skirmish. He also got a little testy as he talked through the decision to call Daniel Carter into the squad.

"I think it is fairly common sense. We make common sense decisions. I think we have made a common sense decision on Daniel Carter and quite frankly we get criticised if we pick him.

"So no matter what we do we are wrong, which makes it a wee bit irritating. We would not have selected him unless we thought he was right. He thinks he is in great shape and I watched him play and you probably watched him play at the weekend and he played superbly. You can only go on what you see."

Henry felt his star five-eighths was in great shape mentally and was playing very well. Those sort of endorsements seemed to signal a Sydney test start for Carter.

The coach would not be drawn on that prospect, preferring to point out that fellow selectors Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen would assess Carter again tomorrow night when he played for Canterbury against Waikato.

That was the next step in a seven-month-long process since Carter tore his Achilles tendon playing club rugby in France.

"He has made sure he has ticked all the boxes as he has gone along, he has done that systematically with a lot of patience and has got a very good result."

Henry thought he and his squad got a great deal from yesterday's training camp. They had to debrief their unsuccessful trip to South Africa and then concentrate on ways of beating the Wallabies.

"We looked at areas of the game we did not perform well in, like the lineout ... we got out-physicalled at the cleanout, our high ball skills were poor, we had a few challenges at scrum time on the channelled ball which cost us a try," he said.