Rugby: Slade injury intensifies No 10 hunt

Colin Slade. Photo / Getty Images

Auditions for Daniel Carter's understudy at the Rugby World Cup will intensify now in the wake of Colin Slade's latest broken jaw.

Slade's second fracture of the year is likely to rule him out of the remainder of the Highlanders' impressive campaign after he clashed heads with Melbourne Rebels flanker Michael Lipman in the fifth minute of the New Zealand team's 40-18 triumph.

He was immediately taken to hospital for scans. The 23-year-old stayed in Melbourne to undergo surgery while his team-mates returned home to prepare for the second leg of their southern derby against the Crusaders in Nelson on Saturday.

Ideally that clash would have pitted Slade against Carter but instead the former Crusader is condemned to another lengthy period in rehabilitation.

Slade, who made an impressive debut off the bench in Sydney last year as the All Blacks recovered to beat the Wallabies 23-22, suffered his first jaw fracture against the Blues in a pre-season trial. That injury meant he could only make his first appearance for the Highlanders against the Brumbies a fortnight ago.

But although the Highlanders' plight without Slade might not be as bad as feared (see Jamie Joseph, p84), the All Blacks selectors will be feeling that they could fit all their candidates for Carter's deputy into a very slim broom cupboard.

If the injury is as serious as feared, Slade will, at best, have limited opportunities to impress before the World Cup opens on September 9 and maybe none.

Despite his belated start to the inaugural Super 15, Slade was seen as a frontrunner to back up Carter ahead of Aaron Cruden, Stephen Donald, Mike Delany, Stephen Brett and Luke McAlister.

Cruden has battled for game time alongside Daniel Kirkpatrick at the Hurricanes this season and neither Delany nor Donald have displayed compelling form for the Chiefs.

It was Donald's wayward pass that saw Crusaders winger Sean Maitland intercept to score a vital try in the Crusaders' defeat of the Chiefs on Friday night.

Brett has been effective for the Blues without making a demonstrative case for All Black selection while McAlister, currently outside him at second five-eighths, has 30 tests worth of experience and is on the improve after a disappointing return to New Zealand rugby in 2009.

Highlanders general manager Roger Clark said Slade's break - on the opposite side to the previous one - was likely to require a long recovery period.

"You couldn't get much unluckier, it is both sides now," he said.

"Based on the last time, the recovery time for a broken jaw is six to eight weeks and I don't think after a second one they will want to take too many chances. That is the season for him, really."

If the Highlanders are feeling hard done by, however, consider how the Rebels must feel. Well-beaten by the Highlanders at a home ground that looked as if it might become a venue where the Rebels were difficult to overcome, the Melbourne-based side got a pasting from Australian media claiming they were a team with a 'drink problem.'

Rebels and former Wallaby back Mark Gerrard scoffed at the accusation that Melbourne players need to be "reined in" and suggested it came from disgruntled sources in New South Wales.

"That's from NSW papers is that right? We just signed Kurtley Beale [from the Waratahs] so that's what I put into that," Gerrard said of Melbourne luring the Wallaby fullback from 2012.

"There's always been that rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne."

Gerrard didn't proclaim the entire squad a bunch of 'wowsers' and the Rebels English five-eighth Danny Cipriani is a regular in the social papers. At the start of the season Cipriani was tossed from a nightclub after stealing a bottle of vodka in the early hours of the morning.

But Gerrard, speaking after his side's awful performance in their 40-18 loss to the Highlanders, said there wasn't a grog culture.

The Rebels also continue to deny reports that Force wunderkind James O'Connor has already signed to join Beale in Melbourne and it will be officially unveiled tomorrow. The 20-year-old himself tweeted: "Interesting - only headlines expecting on Monday is big win for the Force, reports not right!"

O'Connor would be an ideal replacement for Cipriani, who continues to be linked with UK and French rugby clubs, but Rebels coach Rod Macqueen believed the English test hopeful would honour his two-year deal.