{"id":564634,"date":"2026-08-10T11:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/564634\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T11:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:34:12","slug":"rennie-reveals-why-will-jordan-and-tyrel-lomax-are-yet-to-feature-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/564634\/","title":{"rendered":"Rennie reveals why Will Jordan and Tyrel Lomax are yet to feature in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>  Published: 5 hours ago | 10 August 2026 02:20 EDT  <br \/> Updated: 4 hours ago | 10 August 2026 03:21 EDT  <\/p>\n<p>mens<\/p>\n<p>international<\/p>\n<p>    Dublin , Ireland \u2013 6 November 2024; Will Jordan, left, and Tyrel Lomax during a New Zealand rugby media conference at The Rasisson St Helen\u2019s Hotel in Dublin. (Photo By Sam Barnes\/Sportsfile via Getty Images) <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"expand\" src=\"https:\/\/eu-cdn.rugbypass.com\/images\/common-svg\/select-arrow.svg\" height=\"6\" width=\"11\"\/>      <a href=\"https:\/\/google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rugbypass.com%2F\" onclick=\"GATracking.sendDataLayerEvent(&#039;preferredsourcegoogle&#039;);\" aria-label=\"Google Prefered Source\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/google_preferred_source_badge_light.png\" alt=\"Google Prefered Source\" width=\"141\" height=\"44\" class=\"google-source\"\/> <\/a>     <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/new-zealand\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">All Blacks<\/a> head coach Dave Rennie is not taking any risks with two of his more experienced players ahead of the first Test against the Springboks next week.<\/p>\n<p>Rugby\u2019s Greatest Rivalry Tour is now well underway after the All Blacks squeezed past the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/stormers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stormers<\/a> in Cape Town, before taking on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/sharks\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sharks<\/a> in the side\u2019s second tour match.<\/p>\n<p>The All Blacks, who were far from perfect against the Cape Town-based <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/united-rugby-championship\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">United Rugby Championship<\/a> side, have made several changes ahead of the Sharks clash, with only seven players from Saturday\u2019s opener backing up.<\/p>\n<p>Rennie\u2019s side against the Sharks in Durban has a \u201cTest team\u201d feel, with Ethan de Groot, Luke Jacobson, Ruben Love, Jordie Barrett, and Damian McKenzie all set to feature for the first time in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Two players that Rennie and his coaching staff haven\u2019t had the option to select, at least just yet, are the All Blacks\u2019 leading try-scorer of all time in Tests, Will Jordan, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/hurricanes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hurricanes<\/a> tighthead prop Tyrel Lomax.<\/p>\n<p>Both players, who have often been in the All Blacks\u2019 starting 23 in recent years, are nursing minor injuries that have ruled them out of selection.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the methodology behind the Sharks team selection, Rennie explained why three players won\u2019t feature in either of the first two RGR contests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, reasonably [straightforward selection], well, we got a couple of guys with niggles,\u201d Rennie said in his team-selection press conference in Durban.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo Tyrel Lomax, who we think should be right by Saturday, and Xavier Numia was the same. And Will Jordan\u2019s just had a little bit of a crook back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe plan was to play him [Jordan] in this game, but he\u2019ll play the Bulls. So yeah, I mean the only other one I think was Codie Taylor, who we also think he should be right for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/bulls\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bulls<\/a> game too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The All Blacks head coach said he was confident his side will do a better job against the Sharks, after reviewing the Stormers contest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of guys who have never played over here, and you can talk about the challenges you\u2019re going to face up front, and so you don\u2019t really understand it until you experience it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, look, we\u2019re confident we\u2019ll do a better job. We\u2019ll do a better job staying in front of them all; we did do better in the second half, and the scrum stuff we can tidy up and we just weren\u2019t clinical enough on the edge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe created a lot of opportunities, and a couple of them were sort of three-on-ones, and five-on-twos type of thing, and we didn\u2019t nail it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, we\u2019ll spend a little bit of time on the high ball. I don\u2019t think we caught one, so it\u2019s gonna it\u2019s gonna be important for us.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will take a lot of learnings from it, but plenty of effort. As I mentioned, when we were down 13, the boys barred up for each other, and we finished strong. We were a lot more clinical when it mattered. We played at a tempo that, if we can be accurate, then we can stress the opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: 5 hours ago | 10 August 2026 02:20 EDT Updated: 4 hours ago | 10 August 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-564634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564634","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=564634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}