{"id":14298,"date":"2012-09-06T03:48:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-06T01:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/09\/corrected-rugby-new-zealands-smith-returns-for-argentina-clash\/"},"modified":"2012-09-06T03:48:49","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T01:48:49","slug":"corrected-rugby-new-zealands-smith-returns-for-argentina-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/corrected-rugby-new-zealands-smith-returns-for-argentina-clash\/","title":{"rendered":"CORRECTED-Rugby-New Zealand’s Smith returns for Argentina clash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

(Corects number of changes to forwards in paras 10-11)<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

WELLINGTON, Sept 6<\/span> (Reuters) – Conrad Smith will return for
\nNew Zealand’s Rugby Championship clash against Argentina on
\nSaturday after the centre missed two Bledisloe Cup tests against
\nAustralia due to eye surgery.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Smith and Ma’a Nonu have had a long partnership at Super
\nRugby and international level and were the first choice centre
\npairing for the All Blacks during last year’s World Cup
\ncampaign, though they have not played together since beating
\nFrance to win the Webb Ellis trophy.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Smith had two surgeries on a detached retina following the
\nconclusion of the Super Rugby tournament and was unavailable for
\nthe All Blacks victories over the Wallabies last month.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The 30-year-old Nonu was rested for the June internationals
\nagainst Ireland, and when he returned to the side for the Rugby
\nChampionship he was moved out to centre to accommodate Sonny
\nBill Williams.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Williams has since left on a short-term playing contract in
\nJapan and is then expected to link up with a rugby league club
\nin Australia.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Smith’s return will bring greater balance to the backline,
\nwith Nonu and Williams both line-breaking players who appeared
\nto lack a little cohesion in linking with their back three in
\nthe tests against Australia.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“We have been working on constantly improving our game and
\nthat has again been our focus this week,” All Blacks coach Steve
\nHansen said in a statement.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“We were happy with our intensity and attitude in the last
\ntest against Australia, but not so happy with our execution when
\nwe didn’t get the decision-making process right on occasions, so
\nwe are looking for improvement in that area this weekend.”
\n\u00a0 Continued…<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Corects number of changes to forwards in paras 10-11) WELLINGTON, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Conrad Smith will return for New Zealand’s Rugby Championship clash against Argentina on Saturday after the centre missed two Bledisloe Cup tests against Australia due to eye surgery. Smith and Ma’a Nonu have had a long partnership at Super Rugby and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-14298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}