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Goodhue and Sonny Bill All Black midfield combination on hold for now


Sonny Bill Williams and Jack Goodhue of the All Blacks. Photo by Anthony Au-Yeung/Getty Images
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The Jack Goodhue and Sonny Bill Williams midfield combination has been temporarily put on hold, with illness set to keep Goodhue out until the All Blacks play England next month.

23-year-old Goodhue is currently dealing with glandular fever and will head straight to London to prepare for the test against England, with Ngani Laumape taking his place for the October 27 third Bledisloe Test against Australia.

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Ryan Crotty is the likely starter in the No. 13 jersey alongside Williams, with the versatile Anton Lienert-Brown among the reserves.

“He’s playing well; not to say that Ryan’s not, but he’s playing very well and we want to see that combination of him and Sonny,” Hansen said of Goodhue before he was ruled out of the Springboks rematch to cap the Rugby Championship.

“We last saw it in the French series. We know a lot about Ryan and Jack but we don’t know a lot about Sonny and Jack.

“All year we’ve been trying to work out what’s our best combination in that area for the future and this is an opportunity to do that.”

Goodhue was one of the All Blacks’ most consistent performers during the Rugby Championship despite having just five Tests to his name after making his debut against France earlier this year.

The young midfielder shapes as an important piece of Steve Hansen’s World Cup plans. He first burst on the scene his first year out of high school, playing for Canterbury in the Mitre 10 Cup. After suffering an ACL and MCL injury in 2015 he missed almost a year of action before eventually starring for the Crusaders as a 22-year-old in 2017 and earning an All Blacks call-up and his first non-test international appearance.

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Phantom 1 hour ago
Nations Championship: 'The data shows the north has finally caught up with the south'

Fact: the gap between the North and the South has narrowed considerably - that I get. However, determining that only selecting only Home grown players or playing in the home country is is the optimal strategy is a bit of a toss up and highly reliant on the economies of the home union. I do understand that England and to a lesser degree Ireland selects home based only. The top 14 is a massive threat to their domestic product. France would probably not be affected (the money is at home). Fiji, Argentina, Samoa, Italy and you could even argue Scotland have only benefitted from this. Their players either go overseas to learn at higher levels (Fiji, Samoa, Argentina) or players coming into their leagues to strengthen the home product and their National teams (Scotland, Italy, Japan).

South Africa used to limit its selection to the home based players, but the reality of a weak currency vs what players could earn oversees meant that you lost access to your best players at some stage of their careers, with very few exceptions. Kolbe left SA as he was considered too small for International Rugby (yes coaches/selectors view), but ironically in France he forced selectors to notice his endeavors and select him. He is only reaching 50 caps now despite being north of 30 - granted rotation and the odd injury also played a role, but for the most part it is having debuted or becoming a regular so late.



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