The All Blacks could be staring down a minor crisis ahead of their South African tour this week after the news that George Bell, their hooker, was injured in training and will return home to New Zealand for treatment.
This comes after their stand-in captain Codie Taylor is still struggling - also with a calf injury - and is in a race against time to get fit for the first game against the DHL Stormers in Cape Town on Friday night.
The team released a statement confirming Bell’s return to New Zealand, making him the first casualty of the tour.
“All Blacks hooker, George Bell, will return home from South Africa after suffering a calf strain during training in Cape Town on Sunday. Bell's return to play is expected to be four to six weeks, so he will return to New Zealand to rehabilitate.
“Taranaki and Blues hooker Bradley Slater has been called into the squad and is due to arrive on Wednesday.
"We are all gutted for George, to be ruled out of the tour so early," All Blacks Head Coach Dave Rennie said. “He’s had a frustrating past few months with injury so it’s a real blow for him to have injured his calf again. We look forward to seeing him return via the NPC and put himself in a position to push for All Blacks selection later in the year."
Taylor also has a calf injury but was confident of making the grade by the time the tour kicks off. He is the stand-in tour captain with Ardie Savea being given a break because of a heavy workload.
Taylor said he was looking positive to making it back onto the field on time.
“It's all good. It's not ideal when you come over and you do it and then you've got a tour to get stuck into. But the physios have been good. I'm back running and stuff now,” he told a New Zealand media call.
“So, just taking it day by day and, you know, I'll be playing this week obviously. But looking forward to hopefully maybe the following week or yeah, what's ahead. That's my go -up.”
He added that the tour represented probably the “biggest challenge of our careers.”
“Yeah, like when we were on the plane, I think we probably all had a moment to sit back and realise what the challenges were ahead of us,” Taylor added.
“It's going to be a really tough one, but I think it's great for us as a group. There's a lot of excitement among the group. We're not fooling ourselves into thinking it's going to be easier because it's not. And South Africa at home is probably the biggest challenge that we'll face in our rugby careers. So, it's exciting, but we're really, really given to it.”
Slater is the son of Taranaki rugby legend Andy Slater and his uncle Gordon played six matches for the All Blacks, including three tests.
Bradley made a name for himself at New Plymouth Boys’ High School as both a rugby player and a cricketer, playing for the school’s First XV and First XI. He made the New Zealand Schools team and the Chiefs side in 2019, playing more than 60 games for the Super side through to 2025, before transferring to the Blues. He continued his rise in rugby, earning selection for the All Blacks XV in 2024 and 2025.