{"id":538807,"date":"2026-03-13T23:58:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T23:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/538807\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T23:58:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T23:58:15","slug":"stephen-donalds-all-blacks-plea-after-strange-will-jordan-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/538807\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Donald’s All Blacks plea after strange Will Jordan decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former All Blacks fly-half Stephen Donald wants to see the best of the best feature in the New Zealand derbies after Will Jordan\u2019s surprising omission.<\/p>\n

In one of the biggest games of the Super Rugby Pacific season, and indeed one of the greatest rivalries, the star full-back was rested for the Crusaders\u2019 game with the Blues last weekend.<\/p>\n

The Christchurch-based outfit succumbed 29-13 in Auckland as they severely missed the influence of the All Blacks<\/a> star.<\/p>\n

Huge match<\/p>\n

Considering the magnitude of the game, Donald was shocked that Jordan<\/a> sat out the clash irrespective of the protocols they have in place in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The players\u2019 loads must be managed in line with the mandatory rest agreement but, as things stand, NZ Rugby have yet to fill a number of high performance positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he was injured, he was injured and that\u2019s fine, everyone can live with that, but it\u2019s a funny game to rest him in,\u201d Donald said on The Aftermatch with Kirst and Beav.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s [Crusaders head coach] Rob Penney answerable to? No one right now, there\u2019s no high performance guy saying: \u2018You\u2019ve got to rest him three out of four weeks\u2019, or what have you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tana Umaga breaks silence on All Blacks \u2018speculation\u2019 and issues \u2018stand out\u2019 verdict on Dave Rennie<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, NZ Rugby recently appointed Dave Rennie, but it came on the same day as the Crusaders\u2019<\/a> team was announced for the Blues clash, so he certainly had more pressing matters than forcing rest periods to be adhered to.<\/p>\n

Jordan has returned to the 15 jersey for the next encounter against South Island rivals the Highlanders on Saturday, but Donald would like to see All Blacks stars available for every New Zealand derby.<\/p>\n

Donald\u2019s suggestion to NZ Rugby<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing on that \u2013 this is completely going left-field \u2013 can we just rest them in non-derbies?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe as New Zealanders love our derbies. Don\u2019t have All Blacks resting in derbies \u2013 they just want to see the best, and he\u2019s one.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just want to see him at Eden Park, it\u2019s a big stage. It\u2019s a bit of a shame if it was a forced All Blacks rest week, but that seems very tough to believe considering we don\u2019t have anyone in any position of importance right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the first order of business from Rennie after being announced as coach on Wednesday was to tell them who\u2019s playing that weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: All Blacks: Beauden Barrett\u2019s blunt verdict on working with Dave Rennie after being involved in \u2018thorough\u2019 appointment process<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former All Blacks fly-half Stephen Donald wants to see the best of the best feature in the New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,29897,818,1736,44,760,85,29898,67732],"class_list":["post-538807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-crusaders","tag-home-page","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby","tag-will-jordan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538807","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=538807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}