{"id":626847,"date":"2026-10-11T00:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T00:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626847\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T00:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T00:22:11","slug":"four-all-blacks-ruled-out-of-sydney-trip-fan-favourite-duplessis-kirifi-included","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626847\/","title":{"rendered":"Four All Blacks ruled out of Sydney trip; fan favourite Du’Plessis Kirifi included"},"content":{"rendered":"

All Blacks Leroy Carter, Asafo Aumua, Anton Segner and Ethan Blackadder have all been ruled out of the second Bledisloe Cup test against Australia due to injury.<\/p>\n

Wing Carter suffered a high ankle sprain when scoring a late try in his team’s 50-19 victory at Eden Park on Saturday night<\/a> and is likely to be a long-term absentee, with his participation in next month’s Nations Championship tests in the United Kingdom in doubt.<\/p>\n

He left Eden Park on crutches and nursing a badly swollen left ankle after a “hip drop” tackle by Wallabies loose forward Rob Valetini.<\/p>\n

The tackle technique was last week outlawed by World Rugby but the ban does not take effect until 1 November.<\/p>\n

Carter has been replaced in the squad for next Saturday’s match at Accor Stadium by midfielder Anton Lienert-Brown.<\/p>\n

Hooker Aumua failed a second head injury assessment and must serve a minimum 12-day concussion stand-down, with loose forward Anton Segner similarly sidelined after also joining Saturday night’s test off the reserves bench.<\/p>\n

Aumua has been replaced by George Bell, with Segner replaced by Du’Plessis Kirifi – the Wellington and Hurricanes loose forward joining the All Blacks squad for the first time this year.<\/p>\n

Ethan Blackadder, not named in the match-day squad for Saturday night’s test, injured a calf in the warm-up but the issue is not thought to be serious.<\/p>\n

He has been replaced for the trip to Sydney by lock Jamie Hannah.<\/p>\n

The news is better for lock Scott Barrett<\/a>, who passed a second head injury assessment after leaving the field in the second half and who has travelled with the squad.<\/p>\n

Fans of 29-year-old Kirifi, the inspirational Hurricanes co-captain who made his test debut last year, will be pleased at their man’s inclusion after he was seen as one of the unluckier players to miss selection for the recent tour of South Africa.<\/p>\n

All Blacks attack coach Mike Blair told reporters at Auckland airport on Sunday morning of the loose forward: “It’s great that we get this opportunity to look at him. He’s not been in with the group yet. But for us to get to know him a little bit more – his personality, his leadership, the impact he can have on the group is exciting for him and exciting for us as well.”<\/p>\n

Blair said the value of the “Greatest Rivalry” tour had already been seen in the depth the All Blacks have built this year.<\/p>\n

“The provincial matches that we played allowed us to look at players and see them within our systems. We know how physical the game is these days\u2026 it’s unfortunate that [the injuries have] happened but it’s a brilliant opportunity to build depth before the World Cup.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Blacks Leroy Carter, Asafo Aumua, Anton Segner and Ethan Blackadder have all been ruled out of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-626847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626847","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=626847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}