All Blacks recall for Slade

Editor

Fly-half Colin Slade has been recalled to the All Blacks Rugby Championship squad as a replacement for the injured Dan Carter.

Fly-half Colin Slade has been recalled to the All Blacks Rugby Championship squad as a replacement for injured playmaker Dan Carter.

Carter fractured the fibula bone in his right leg while playing for the Crusaders in last weekend's Super Rugby Final defeat to the Waratahs in Sydney.

He is expected to be sidelined for at least four weeks, which rules him out of New Zealand's Bledisloe Cup Tests against Australia in Sydney on August 16 and in Auckland a week later.

Slade has also stood in for Carter at the Crusaders this season.

Carter spent most of the Christchurch-based franchise's Super Rugby campaign on the sidelines as he paced his return from a sabbatical which also saw him missing the All Blacks' three-Test series against England in June.