Rugby: All Blacks' horror injury toll a fact of life

Sonny Bill Williams aggravated an old injury while training with the ABs. Photo / Getty Images

SBW ruled out of French series by bone chip which needs surgery, writes Gregor Paul.

The All Blacks are having to accept the new reality that the horrendous injury toll they suffered last year was not an aberration but the new normal in the wake of Sonny Bill Williams being ruled out of the June series.

Williams aggravated an old knee injury while training with the All Blacks and a scan showed the 32-year-old had a loose piece of bone in the joint. He now requires surgery and the expectation is he won't be able to train for at least four weeks, making him the second - Tim Perry being the other - of the original 33-man squad selected to be forced to pull out.

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen won't have welcomed the news about Williams, but it won't have set him into a tailspin either. It's annoying more than catastrophic.

Annoying because the All Blacks haven't enjoyed consistency of selection in their midfield since Ma'a Nonu and Conrad Smith retired. Not the way they wanted, at least. They imagined coming into the 2016 season that Williams and Ryan Crotty would be their preferred pairing but that prospect died when the former ripped his Achilles at the Olympics.

Form fluctuations and injury forced them to chop and change throughout the year and while there was an unexpected bonus of discovering Anton Lienert-Brown, it meant the All Blacks reached the end of the year without having established a preferred combination.

They made better progress on that front last year when Williams and Crotty started eight tests together. Given their individual experience and ability, as well as the combined experience, the selectors were hoping to further enhance the Williams-Crotty combination in 2018 and probably start them in all three tests against France.

That won't happen now and the picture is clouded due to the uncertainty hanging over Crotty who is battling concussion symptoms he suffered playing against the Blues a few weeks ago. He'll need to be passed fit to train by Monday if he is to be available for selection and the coaching team will be relatively keen for that to happen.

In the absence of Williams, Ngani Laumape is the obvious choice to promote to the No12 shirt. The 24-year-old has been in storming form for the Hurricanes and is one of the best gainline runners in Super Rugby.

But he has only four caps and the coaches will want Crotty at centre so he can use his experience to guide Laumape.

If Crotty doesn't recover the next most experienced centre in the squad is Lienert-Brown and he would probably get the nod ahead of the exciting and impressive Jack Goodhue.

Lienert-Brown has proven himself to be a rock solid test player. He is calm, composed and finds a way to exploit space. He is, with a different style albeit, almost as good an offloader as Williams but it is his temperament and experience which are the qualities that will win him the No13 jersey.

The selectors may well be eager to give Goodhue his first taste of test football at centre but they would be wary about partnering him with Laumape given their collective lack of experience.

That's a combination to look at later in the year - perhaps against Japan or Italy.

It is probable that the selectors will call in a replacement for Williams - especially with Crotty not certain to be fit either. That would likely see Matt Proctor and Rob Thompson come under scrutiny this weekend with one or perhaps both called in by the All Blacks. Vince Aso would have been in the frame, too, but for injury.

Ideally, the coaches would have called up Charlie Ngatai who continues to be a hugely effective and high impact contributor for the Chiefs. But he's off to France at the end of Super Rugby and therefore not a long term prospect.