2019 Rugby World Cup: Ardie Savea ditches goggles before putting them on again against Canada

All Blacks flanker Ardie Savea wearing his goggles during their Rugby World Cup pool match against Canada at the Oita Stadium. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Two minutes and two breakdowns. That's as long as Ardie Savea gave it before he briefly ditched his new goggles after coming off the bench in the All Blacks' impressive 63-0 win over Canada at the Rugby World Cup.

After 60 minutes some sections of the Oita crowd chanted "we want Ardie" – as they wanted to see the newly-goggled loose forward.

Savea entered the game in the 70th minute to replace Matt Todd and his first test for the new protective eyewear was at scrum time.

All the match and player stats from All Blacks v Canada

The All Blacks had two scrums and Savea entered two breakdowns before he threw the goggles towards the sideline in the 72nd minute.

The next time he touched the ball, without the goggles, he knocked it on. In the following scrum he put them back on and stuck with the eyewear for the remainder of the match.

It was revealed on Tuesday that he would be wearing goggles due to battling serious sight troubles in his left eye for the past two years.

"A couple of years ago I realised I had bad vision in my left eye," Savea said. "Everything's kind of blurry. I told All Blacks doctor Tony Page that it was getting worse and now we're doing something about it.

"Doc notified me that World Rugby had some goggles that were approved and everyone has been really supportive. In terms of vision and seeing, it's pretty sweet, and it's now just a matter of getting used to them."

In May this year, World Rugby approved the use of the goggles at all levels of rugby to allow those who are visually impaired to play the game. The approval came after extensive development and robust testing of the eyewear.