Beauden Barrett in doubt for Rugby Championship with hand injury<\/p>\n
All Blacks playmaker Beauden Barrett could be in doubt for the Rugby Championship due to a hand injury.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s understood the injury is linked to the same issue the veteran No. 10 sustained in March while playing for the Blues in Super Rugby Pacific.<\/p>\n
Barrett has not been named in the 23-member squad for Saturday night\u2019s third Test against France in Hamilton.<\/p>\n
He started at fly-half in the first and second Tests against France.<\/p>\n
Damian McKenzie replaces him at first five-eighth, with Ruben Love earning his first start at fullback.<\/p>\n
All Blacks coach Scott Robertson confirmed Barrett was undergoing an X-ray on his right hand.<\/p>\n
He says Barrett was an option to play, but they want to manage him carefully.<\/p>\n
Robertson was reluctant to go into further detail on the injury.<\/p>\n
Losing his most experienced playmaker remains a concern ahead of the Rugby Championship, which kicks off next month.<\/p>\n
Will Jordan has been moved from fullback to the bench as Robertson hands McKenzie and Love a chance to start.<\/p>\n
Robertson had promised to give his full squad an opportunity against the French.<\/p>\n
The All Blacks have already sealed the series 2\u20130 heading into the final Test at Waikato Stadium.<\/p>\n
Barrett is the team\u2019s first-choice No. 10 and was expected to start in the All Blacks\u2019 Rugby Championship opener against Argentina in C\u00f3rdoba on August 17th.<\/p>\n
The All Blacks face France at 7.05pm tomorrow at Waikato Stadium.<\/p>\n
[Source: Stuff.co.nz]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beauden Barrett in doubt for Rugby Championship with hand injury All Blacks playmaker Beauden Barrett could be in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,2353,760,85],"class_list":["post-1602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-beauden-barrett-in-doubt-for-rugby-championship-with-hand-injury","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}