STEVE HANSEN ACKNOWLEDGES New Zealand “rolled the dice” with the selection of Brodie Retallick in their Rugby World Cup squad as he will not be fit for the pool stage.
Retallick dislocated his shoulder in the All Blacks’ Rugby Championship draw against South Africa last month, but he has been named in the 31-man group to travel to Japan.
Hansen, explaining his selection on Wednesday, admitted Retallick is unlikely to feature for the defending champions until the knockout stages.
“The update is his shoulder is still sore. We don’t expect him to play in the round robin,” he said, with his side set to face the Springboks, Italy, Namibia and Canada in Pool B.
But we’re reasonably sure that – no disrespect to anyone else in our pool – we should make the quarter-finals. From there, we don’t know.
“So, at this point, we’ve rolled the dice to take him for that quarter-final, and we’ll see what happens from there.
“We think he’s worthy of that risk. He’s a quality player – and he’ll add plenty to us off the park, as well.”
Meanwhile, Liam Squire was not named in the squad, having previously made himself unavailable for international duty.
Hansen insisted it was a joint decision with Squire, who is leaving New Zealand at the end of the season to join Japanese club NTT Docomo Red Hurricanes, but the 28-year-old could yet join the group as a replacement.
“We had a phone call, a really good phonecall actually, and discussed things,” he said.
“While Liam is playing really well for Tasman and enjoying his rugby, at the end of that conversation, it was agreed that he would make himself available if required as a replacement.”
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I’ve held tongue for so long on this team this season and I’ve forgiven so many injuries and woeful individual performances, but today was just unacceptable…
Sure, a lucky start for Bochum which was balanced by two soft penalties for Dortmund, but this is a derby. Already held us to a 1-1 earlier in the year, and they were basically safe prior to kick-off. Yet, somehow players like Akanji (god help whoever he goes to, probably Man Utd), Zagadou, Witsel and even backup Hitz in goal are just appalling. Fight our way back into it for 70mins only to fall asleep (bar Jude, Reus, Haaland, Wolf, and Gittens). I know we had multiple injuries again today, and the season is over, but for the love of God fight for the one home Derby we’ve had all year.
Summer Rebuild can’t come quick enough.
Dortmund seem to be in holiday mode , this attitude should never be accepted in the professional game , it’s cheating a living and must be devastating for the cash paying fans .
@Tricksy: they have been in holiday mode for a few years now .. absolute disgrace
@Tricksy: Don’t tell the Borussia Bears from govan that