The Black Ferns are set to announce 14-Test wing Mererangi Paul as the injury replacement for Amy Du’Plessis at the Women’s Rugby World Cup in the UK.<\/p>\n
Team management previously confirmed to media that a replacement back had been called into the squad to cover Du’Plessis after she was given an emotional sendoff by the team following their 46-17 quarterfinal win over South Africa at the weekend.<\/p>\n
Fans had been speculating the replacement could be fellow outside back Ruby Tui, with the 33-year-old already in the UK covering the World Cup as part of the BBC’s coverage after missing out on squad selection prior.<\/p>\n
Her media role has meant she hasn’t been playing or training, though, unlike Hannah King, another name suggested after her notable absence from Canterbury’s FPC win over Auckland on Saturday.<\/p>\n
However, 1News understands that the player will be Paul, who comes into the squad fresh with Counties Manukau experiencing a bye in the latest round of the Farah Palmer Cup. <\/p>\n
Paul joins a Black Ferns squad facing a midfield injury crisis ahead of their semifinal against Canada, with both Theresa Setefano and Logo-I-Pulotu Lemapu Atai’i Sylvia Brunt unlikely to play.<\/p>\n
Setefano failed a head injury assessment during Sunday’s win over the Springbok Women, meaning World Rugby’s mandatory 12-day minimum stand-down protocol should be in effect, while Brunt has suffered delayed symptoms from her second head knock this tournament, sustained during the final pool match against Ireland a week ago.<\/p>\n
With Du’Plessis’ departure, it means Stacey Waaka is the only specialist midfielder fit for Saturday’s game.<\/p>\n
While predominantly selected on the wing for the Black Ferns previously, Paul has been playing at both midfield positions for the Counties Manukau heat this season.<\/p>\n
Saturday’s game kicks off at 6am NZT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Black Ferns are set to announce 14-Test wing Mererangi Paul as the injury replacement for Amy Du’Plessis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10898,42,43,1838,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-24276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-black-ferns","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-rugby-world-cup","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}