KEY POINTS:
Ryan Nelsen's withdrawal yesterday from the All Whites squad for next week's matches against Costa Rica and Venezuela has a silver lining for a player who might have expected to warm the substitutes bench.
Coach Ricki Herbert, while dis-appointed Nelsen has joined fellow English Premier League player Simon Elliott in withdrawing from the 20-player squad named for the Central/South American tour, has decided not to add players to the side.
"I feel this is the chance to give players who might otherwise be seen as bench players the chance to join the starting XI," Herbert said.
After missing most of the season with a niggling hamstring injury, Nelsen had returned to his Blackburn Rovers side but hobbled out of last Monday's FA Cup quarter-final win over Manchester City and missed the weekend's EPL 2-1 loss to struggling West Ham.
With the tour matches falling in an official Fifa window, New Zealand Soccer was within its rights to insist Nelsen should, if fit, play for the All Whites.
But, after discussions between NZS chief executive Graham Seatter and Blackburn manager Mark Hughes, it was agreed Nelsen be allowed to skip the matches.
Hughes said Nelsen was racing against time to be fit for Rovers' crucial away match against Manchester United on April 1 and was unlikely to be fit before that.
But Hughes has given Seatter an assurance Nelsen, if fit, will be available for the scheduled mid-year European tour, which includes confirmed matches against Wales and Ukraine.
He will also be available for planned matches in Asia later and the World Cup qualifiers.
Nelsen and Elliott have joined strikers Chris Killen (injured) and Vaughan Coveny (retired) as non-starters for the matches next Sunday and on March 29 in San Jose (v Costa Rica) and Maracaibo (Venezuela).
But Herbert prefers to look on the positive side and, recalling his own international debut as the opportunity such forced changes bring, said: "I got my chance against Mexico because Bobby Almond and Glen Adam were out through injury.
"I made my debut alongside Dave Bright and we went on to win."
Though still some days from naming a starting line-up for the Costa Rica match, Herbert is likely to go for a three-man defence with experienced campaigners Danny Hay (captain), Che Bunce and Ivan Vicelich.
He will then look to Tony Lochhead and Noah Hickey to provide the width, with players such as Tim Brown, Leo Bertos, Andy Barron and Chris James to contest the central midfield roles behind a likely strike duo of Shane Smeltz and Jarrod Smith.
