NZ’s centurion Cane to raise the bat in Bledisloe II
Sam Cane will notch a century of Tests for the All Blacks and hopes to celebrate it in now-familiar fashion, by beating the Wallabies.
New Zealand take on Australia on Saturday in their closing Bledisloe Cup and Rugby Championship contest at Wellington’s Sky Stadium.
The match is a dead rubber on both counts.
The All Blacks have retained the first trophy for the 23rd straight year, but are out of the running for the southern hemisphere title, which will be decided in Mbombela where South Africa face Argentina.
Attention instead turns to celebrating Cane, who becomes the All Blacks’ latest centurion in a series he was never expected to play.
The 32-year-old captained New Zealand at the last World Cup, when he was sent off in the final and watched his team-mates fall to a one-point loss to South Africa.
Incoming All Blacks coach Scott Robertson was expected to look past Cane, who moved to Japan and picked up a serious back injury with club side Tokyo Sungoliath.
However, the mighty loose forward recovered and was shown the faith to return for his country.
“At the start of the year, little bit of uncertainty around where my body was at and what the year looked like (with) changes from a coaching point of view and where they want to go,” he said.
“I took the mindset at the start … to do anything I can to get my body in good shape and give myself a chance to play.
“It’s turned out I actually got a few Test matches in, which has just been super special.”
Cane will become the 13th player to get to triple figures for the All Blacks, and will play Australia for the 25th time.
Showing New Zealand’s dominance over their bigger brother, he has lost just four of those clashes.
Cane said a pair of home Tests in 2020 stood out as his best trans-Tasman memories.
“We drew (16-16) in Wellington, then we went up to Eden Park in an afternoon Test, one of the only times I played an afternoon Test, it was packed out, and we had a really good (27-7) win,” he said.
“My first year as skipper, and by drawing that first one, the Bledisloe was on the line the second one, and we just got an awesome team performance.”
Cane said he would remain available for the All Blacks’ northern hemisphere tour but hadn’t thought about extending his international career past that, when he falls foul of New Zealand Rugby’s eligibility rules.
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