Rennie reveals why Will Jordan and Tyrel Lomax are yet to feature in South Africa

All Blacks 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.

Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Tour is now well underway after the All Blacks squeezed past the Stormers in Cape Town, before taking on the Sharks in the side’s second tour match.

The All Blacks, who were far from perfect against the Cape Town-based United Rugby Championship side, have made several changes ahead of the Sharks clash, with only seven players from Saturday’s opener backing up.

Rennie’s side against the Sharks in Durban has a “Test team” 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.

Two players that Rennie and his coaching staff haven’t had the option to select, at least just yet, are the All Blacks’ leading try-scorer of all time in Tests, Will Jordan, and Hurricanes tighthead prop Tyrel Lomax.

Both players, who have often been in the All Blacks’ starting 23 in recent years, are nursing minor injuries that have ruled them out of selection.

When asked about the methodology behind the Sharks team selection, Rennie explained why three players won’t feature in either of the first two RGR contests.

“Yeah, reasonably [straightforward selection], well, we got a couple of guys with niggles,” Rennie said in his team-selection press conference in Durban.

“So Tyrel Lomax, who we think should be right by Saturday, and Xavier Numia was the same. And Will Jordan’s just had a little bit of a crook back.

“The plan was to play him [Jordan] in this game, but he’ll 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 Bulls game too.”

The All Blacks head coach said he was confident his side will do a better job against the Sharks, after reviewing the Stormers contest.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who have never played over here, and you can talk about the challenges you’re going to face up front, and so you don’t really understand it until you experience it.

“So, look, we’re confident we’ll do a better job. We’ll 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’t clinical enough on the edge.

“We 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’t nail it.

“So, we’ll spend a little bit of time on the high ball. I don’t think we caught one, so it’s gonna it’s gonna be important for us.

“We 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.”