John McBeth On RWC: Who's Laughing Now?

There were a number of sniggers early in the Rugby World Cup when the Wallabies suffered a few injuries. Many hands were being rubbed together in glee at the news of Fran Steyn's exit from the Springboks. Now it's our turn.

While everyone feels sympathy for Daniel Carter, nobody outside of the All Blacks team and supporters will be anything other than relieved, jubilant even, that he will no longer feature in the tournament, such is his influence.

The last 48 hours will have been troubling for the All Blacks. It seemed the Carter tragedy was hanging over the team throughout the match with Canada, but they will bounce out of this depression pretty quickly. They will need to, because on the surface they might have more injury concerns than just their ace first five.

Keiran Read paced himself for 50 minutes and, like his skipper, is still a fair way from full fitness.

Tony Woodcock was clearly concussed but there'll be some other spin on that. So in reality we have Carter out and three other key players battling against time.

Then, as we saw in Wellington, Dagg and Slade both limped off to join Kahui amongst a growing list of wounded.

But as I mentioned in my most recent article, this is why Graham Henry has insisted on giving game time to a wide squad of players this season. Imagine if neither Slade nor Weepu had received any game time this year...wouldn't we be going ballistic at the All Black selectors for getting it wrong!

All sports teams prepare for the possibility of key players being injured. Carter's withdrawal is a big blow, but it's not a lethal blow.

This is the time for the experience and confidence within this team to take effect.

Broadcaster John McBeth -- commentator when the All Blacks last won the Rugby World Cup and is host of SKY's Sunday Rugby Roast -- will be commenting on the Rugby World Cup for Scoop.co.nz from time to time - as he sees fit. John's website is at http://johnmcbeth.co.nz/

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