All Blacks head coach Ian Foster said that he was impressed with Akira Ioane despite pulling him from the field just half an hour into his debut in last night's 24-22 loss to the Wallabies.
Facing staunch competition for the number eight jersey, Ioane finally got his long-waited test call up, however in a cruel twist of fate, the red card to Ofa Tu'ungafasi saw him leave the field early as Foster was forced to re-shuffle the All Blacks' forward pack.
Despite the end result, Foster said he was impressed with his side's performance early on, pointing to Ioane and expressing his regret at having to take the debutant out of the game early.
"I was particularly dissapointed for Akira," Foster said.
"I thought he started his first test start magnificent really, you know the first 25 minutes, and then of course we had to take a loosey off, so its pretty tough with the two experienced campaigners next to him."
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