New Zealand have been rocked by a disciplinary breach ahead of their crunch clash with Ireland.
Brutal All Blacks boss Ian Foster has dropped winger Mark Telea for breaking a curfew and he will not miss one of the biggest matches of his career.
Leicester Fainga’anuku, 26, will start against Ireland in his place.
“He breached the protocol, nothing major, but enough to keep him out of selection for this week,” said Foster. “I still love him, he trained well, it happens. Look, it is what it is. For us it’s pretty clean-cut, I don’t really want to talk about it any more. We’ve dealt with it as a team and moved on. We believe in what we stand for and that speaks volumes for the team that we make that sort of decision in this sort of week.”
