All Blacks head coach Ian Foster has spoken of his disappointment at the ban handed to loosehead prop Ethan de Groot which will rule him out of the rest of the World Cup pool stage.
De Groot was given a two-match ban at a judicial hearing in Paris overnight for his high tackle on Namibia’s Adriaan Booysen during the All Blacks’ 71-3 victory in Toulouse on Saturday.
The All Blacks were confident of defending the charge because they felt de Groot’s initial contact was with Booysen’s shoulder (which the loose forward dislocated), and so Foster was not particularly happy when discussing the result with the media in Bordeaux this morning.
“You’re always disappointed,” he said when asked his reaction to the suspension. “It is what it is. Went to Paris, big old day, argued our case, and a little bit surprised. But we’ll just have to suck that up and take it.
“It’s frustrating. It’s one of those things. You’ve just got to deal with it. As frustrated as we are, you’ve just got to keep moving on. He’s going to miss the next two games, but he’ll have a job to do in the meantime.”
Ofa Tuungafasi and Tamaiti Williams will be given the job of packing down in the loosehead position against Italy and Uruguay – both must-win games for the All Blacks’ quarter-final hopes.
“They’re good players,” Foster said. “They’ve been picked for a reason. We’ve got six props, we’re one down … that leaves five.”
The All Blacks have been hampered by the injuries to Sam Cane, Jordie Barrett and Shannon Frizell and now de Groot’s ban but those on the casualty ward are likely to be available to play Italy in Lyon on September 30 after this weekend’s bye.
“We’re actually getting quite settled,” added Foster. “We’ve had a few injuries, but I think we’re climbing out of that. There are some positive signs around the health of the squad. This is an inevitable part of the game and it’s happened for Ethan. But we’ve got to make sure there are no excuses. We’ve got to do what we need to this week in Bordeaux, and make sure we’re ready for a pretty big game in Lyon.”
Foster was speaking after the All Blacks held an open training session which attracted 10,000 people. Up to 30,000 had applied for tickets to the event.
“Bye week in a World Cup is tricky,” Foster said. “It’s a little bit of a breathing space. We’ve had a run round here today in front of a fantastic crowd.
“We’ve got two big sessions this week, and we’re determined to get some hard work in. We haven’t been able to have a lot of hard, physical sessions this campaign because of numbers up front. Now we can. We need to use that smartly because we’ve got some big challenges coming up.”
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