Howlett to miss Super 12 opener

Doug Howlett

All Black wing Doug Howlett will be missing from the Blues' start to the Super 12 campaign and there are also doubts about the fitness of playmaker Carlos Spencer.

Neither will play in Friday's final trial match at Whangarei against the Waratahs while Howlett's hamstring problems will remove him from the opening match a week later against the Highlanders.

A further scan on Spencer's foot problem, which has flared up this week, will determine whether he fronts for that match in Dunedin.

"We are reasonably confident but at this stage of the year we want to be very professional about how we deal with him," coach Peter Sloane said.

Persistent pain sent Spencer for initial x-rays yesterday while he was replaced by Tasesa Lavea for Friday's trial match.

Other injury absentees will be prop Tony Woodcock, midfielder Ben Atiga and flanker Jerome Kaino with a variety of leg ailments.

Sloane made the medical disclosures yesterday at Eden Park while New Zealand's Twenty20 side for tomorrow's cricket match warmed up in the background.

While those scenes reinforced the difficulties of separating the sporting seasons, Sloane said his squad was far better prepared after their first hitout last week against the Hurricanes.

"We got away to a bad start with a couple of defensive lapses and lack of concentration and we need to build on that and work on our new systems," he said.

"This game is our last before the start of the comp so we need to improve and work through our combinations. But we got some of our newer guys into work last week and that is important in this competition."

While the All Black selectors had spoken to the Blues this week about their ideas and players' job descriptions, Sloane said he hoped his squad might give them some extra ideas to think about.

"It is all about us because we are doing different things and we have people [assistant coaches David Nucifora and Joe Schmidt] coming in from different areas bringing in new ideas.

"They [the All Black selectors] have told the players it is a clean sheet and everything hinges on Super 12 really and we know, as they pointed out in the NPC, that the two teams in the final, a lot of them went away on the end of year tour."