{"id":558276,"date":"2026-08-04T01:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T01:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/558276\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T01:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T01:56:11","slug":"training-injury-sends-all-blacks-hooker-home-replacement-en-route","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/558276\/","title":{"rendered":"Training injury sends All Blacks hooker home, replacement en route"},"content":{"rendered":"

All Blacks hooker George Bell has been ruled out of the team’s upcoming tour of South Africa, having suffered a training injury. <\/p>\n

A spokesperson said Bell will return home from the squad’s camp in Cape Town after suffering a calf strain during training. The Crusaders and Canterbury foward is expected to be out of play for the next four to six weeks. <\/p>\n

Taranaki and Blues hooker Bradley Slater has been called up to replace Bell, and will arrive in South Africa on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

\"Bradley<\/p>\n

Bradley Slater of the Blues celebrates after scoring a try during the round seven Super Rugby match between Blues and Fijian Drua at Eden Park, on March 28, 2026, in Auckland, New Zealand. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

“We are all gutted for George, to be ruled out of the tour so early,” All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s had a frustrating past few months with injury so it\u2019s a real blow for him to have injured his calf again. We look forward to seeing him return via the NPC and put himself in a position to push for All Blacks selection later in the year.”<\/p>\n

The All Blacks will take to the field for their first game of the tour against the Stormers on Saturday morning (NZT). <\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including a cold snap closes roads, mothers plead for help to save stranded sons, and Ariana Grande\u2019s big decision. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Blacks hooker George Bell has been ruled out of the team’s upcoming tour of South Africa, having…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[789,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-558276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-all-blacks","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558276","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=558276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}