New Zealand pair could miss Wales clash after injuries

EDINBURGH, Nov 8 : The New Zealand pair of Jordie Barrett and Will Jordan could miss next weekend's Nations Championship clash with Wales, after they picked up injuries at Murrayfield against Scotland on Saturday.

Jordan suffered a suspected hamstring injury in the second half of the All Blacks’ convincing 43-21 victory, while Barrett was taken off for a head injury assessment (HIA) which he failed. He had a clash with Scotland substitute Blair Kinghorn.

"Jordie failed his HIA, so it’s not sure whether he’ll be available this week, but we’ll get a bit of clarity later,” the All Blacks coach Dave Rennie said.

On Jordan, who is the All Blacks’ leading all-time try-scorer, the coach added: “He might have tweaked a hamstring. We’ll assess that, and I’m not sure of the severity of it.”

New Zealand are already without several key players, including inspirational loose forward Ardie Savea, for their four-match November programme in Britain, but had little problem shrugging off the Scottish challenge, even though their hosts were within three points at halftime.

“It was an ill-disciplined first half with a couple of yellow cards,” said Rennie of his team, who had both Wallace Sititi and Peter Lakai sent to the sin-bin. “You give Scotland opportunities near finish zone, they're going to hit you, but we were better in the second half. 

“We went to a contestable kick game to limit their time from a counterattack point of view, and were a lot more clinical, and we dominated territory a bit better.

“You just saw us lose our shape a couple of times, and from turnover we had two or three really gilt-edge opportunities that we spilt,” added the coach.

The All Blacks play against Wales in Cardiff on Saturday. 

(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Sonali Paul)