{"id":920875,"date":"2026-10-08T17:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T17:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920875\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T17:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T17:38:11","slug":"dave-rennie-issues-richie-mounga-update-after-hardest-all-blacks-team-selection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920875\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Rennie issues Richie Mo’unga update after ‘hardest’ All Blacks team selection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Rennie has confirmed that Richie Mo\u2019unga will miss both Bledisloe Cup Test matches against Australia<\/a> due to injury.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old started the final Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry Test match against the Springboks and was set to feature again versus the Wallabies following the setback to Ruben Love, who will miss the remainder of the international season.<\/p>\n

Double injury blow<\/p>\n

Prior to the All Blacks<\/a> team being named on Thursday, New Zealand Rugby confirmed that Mo\u2019unga and Fehi Fineanganofo would miss the opening Bledisloe Cup<\/a> clash against Australia<\/a> at Eden Park due to injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cFineanganofo sustained a concussion and a hamstring strain in the Bay of Plenty match against North Harbour in the final round of the NPC regular season,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile he passed the original head injury assessment (HIA) during the game, he has failed subsequent assessments, meaning he will have a mandatory 12-day stand-down period. Scan results have also confirmed an upper hamstring injury. Canterbury and Crusaders back Chay Fihaki will join the squad as an injury replacement.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst five-eighth Richie Mo\u2019unga<\/a> sustained a calf injury during Tuesday\u2019s training and scans have revealed a tear. His return to play is yet to be determined and will be dependent on his functional progression over the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo decision has yet been made on whether an injury replacement will be brought in for Mo\u2019unga.\u201d<\/p>\n

All Blacks team: Dave Rennie makes big fly-half call after Richie Mo\u2019unga injury while former captain returns for Bledisloe Cup opener<\/a><\/p>\n

Richie Mo\u2019unga update<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters after naming his team to face the Wallabies in Auckland, Rennie confirmed that Mo\u2019unga had initially been named in the starting XV on Monday.<\/p>\n

However, he sustained the calf injury in training on Tuesday, which has ruled him out of both meetings with Australia. That setback has led to the selection of Damian McKenzie at fly-half, who has started every Test for New Zealand at full-back this year, with Beauden Barrett taking over in the number 15 jumper.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe named Richie to the squad on Monday, and he got injured on Tuesday, which is disappointing for him and disappointing for the group,\u201d Rennie said, explaining the selections.<\/p>\n

\u201cDamian has trained a lot there for us and Beauden has predominantly trained at 15 when we were in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Justin Marshall identifies his \u2018main concern\u2019 of All Blacks\u2019 play ahead of Bledisloe Cup<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBeauden started against the Lions and the Bulls at 15; both those players are interchangeable. They both spend a lot of time in the back field. The way we play, having a 15 who is a real playmaker suits, so having both those guys \u2013 we could have played them the other way around, but like I said they both end up in playmaker roles and they will both end up in the back field.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cHe won\u2019t be available next week either, and then we\u2019ll assess; it\u2019s a little tweak in his calf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dave Rennie won\u2019t be \u2018assessed\u2019 on three Springboks defeats as NZ Rugby chief believes All Blacks are \u2018tracking well\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Barrett and Frizell returns<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Scott Barrett and Shannon Frizell have been included in the matchday 23 for the first time this year, with the former named in the second-row whilst the latter has been named on the bench for his first appearance since the 2023 Rugby World Cup final.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably been the hardest side we\u2019ve had to pick. So between Ted [Sir Graham Henry], me and Barnesy [Neil Barnes], we have generally been pretty aligned,\u201d Rennie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to have three selection meetings to nail this and an example would be if you play Tupou at six versus lock; that affects a number of people.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cShannon has been good; it was important that he got a lot of footy in. We\u2019re happy that he played another 80 minutes last Saturday and I think everyone\u2019s seen he\u2019s had a massive impact with the ball; defensively, he\u2019s been good. He\u2019s got post-tackle presence. I think he\u2019s still getting up to speed conditioning-wise, and that\u2019s why we felt it was probably better to bring him off the bench, with Scooter starting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were thinking that rather than having a couple of guys who hadn\u2019t played much footy or hadn\u2019t played for us at all this year, that sort of worked a bit better.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Dave Rennie\u2019s \u2018most important comment\u2019 as Jeff Wilson insists NZ Rugby \u2018will be listening\u2019 after All Blacks boss\u2019 bold claim<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dave Rennie has confirmed that Richie Mo\u2019unga will miss both Bledisloe Cup Test matches against Australia due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,228143,818,1182,1736,44,191966,85],"class_list":["post-920875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dave-rennie","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-richie-mo","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920875","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=920875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}