All Blacks winger Leroy Carter has become the sixth player to be ruled out of New Zealand’s end-of-year tour to the northern hemisphere.
Carter suffered a high ankle injury in the first Bledisloe Cup test against Australia at Eden Park following a hip-drop tackle by Wallabies flanker Rob Valetini.
Josh Moorby stepped up to replace the winger in the second Bledisloe Cup Test, and is expected to do the same come November for the deciding matches of the inaugural Nations Championship competition.
Carter joins five other star players on the All Blacks’ injury list, with captain Ardie Savea (shoulder), loose forward Luke Jacobson (elbow), winger Caleb Clarke (shoulder), flyhalf Ruben Love (ankle) and prop Ollie Norris (knee) already ruled out.
Meanwhile, the All Blacks will soon provide an update on two further players injured during Saturday’s 43-21 in Sydney – loose forward Shannon Frizell and hooker Samisoni Taukei’aho.
“We’re not sure on Shannon, but usually those sort of non-contact injuries, it would be remiss of me to chuck something out there and say ‘we think it’s this’ because we need to get him scanned, which will be Monday,” All Blacks forwards coach Jason Ryan said on Sunday.
“Same with Samisoni Taukei’aho, he went off with a little bit of a tightness in his calf, so we’ll just see where he’s at and he’ll get scanned as well.”
The All Blacks’ Nations Championship clashes are against Scotland (7 November) before taking on Wales on 15 November and England on 22 November to complete the round-robin phase.
The tournament will conclude with a finals weekend from 27-29 November, when the top six Southern Hemisphere seeds face their corresponding Northern Hemisphere seeds.
