Rugby: Afoa answers distress call

John Afoa will cut short his leave period to help the Auckland side. Photo / Dean Purcell

All Black prop John Afoa has cut short his leave to try to arrest Auckland's ailing campaign.

Afoa was supposed to be on a fortnight stand-down after his international duties but Auckland's injury list and motley results have persuaded him to turn out for his province on Saturday against Southland.

Two props, Paea Fa'anunu and Charlie Faumuina, are out of commission and the alternatives are not widespread as Auckland searches for some antidote to the robust forward challenge Southland will deliver at Eden Park.

The hosts will have national loose forward Jerome Kaino back on duty and wing Joe Rokocoko will report for duty next week, but utility back Isaia Toeava has been ruled out of rugby for the rest of the year because of a stress fracture in his right hip.

The 23-year suffered a stress fracture in his foot earlier this season, recovered to play the final two Tri-Nations tests before scans revealed his latest season-ending injury. Afoa missed Auckland's session yesterday but will front for the rest of the week.

"He's keen," said Anscombe. "We will start him. I spoke to him when they first came back and he was clear he wanted two weeks. But then we spoke to him again yesterday and he was pretty keen to come back and play which was great news for us. You welcome back the quality of player he is."

Afoa needed some rugby and did not like to have too many weekends away from his work.

The return of two All Blacks will go some way towards repairing Auckland, who have been very ordinary in losses to North Harbour and Tasman.

"We can't continue as we're going, it's as simple as that," said Anscombe. "We've had a good talk and we're going to try to freshen the boys up this week.

"We've got four games to go and they're all winnable. If we win them we've got a good chance of the playoffs and that's the way we're going to look at it and treat the rest of the games."

Another of Anscombe's problems is that he made a swag of changes last week and they were beaten by demotion-bound Tasman. He will reintroduce the All Blacks and will have another rethink about openside flanker after usual No 8 Peter Saili was used, without great success, against Tasman.

The messages to openside options, Onosai Auva'a and Hamish Paterson, had been to sort out their skills and they had both been doing that.

Southland are second in the competition and will arrive with their sights set on damaging the Auckland pack. "They will try to and we have got to face up to that," said Anscombe. "They have only conceded 11 tries in the competition so they scramble, work hard, have good spirit and they are a doughty bunch of forwards who know what their jobs are about and go and do it."

Kaino's return comes at an opportune time with the looseforward saying his game prospered if he kept playing. He did not like lulls and the more rugby he could get the better.

"Hearing what is being said about my union, it is not easy to sit back and listen to it, but in saying that, a lot if it is deserved with the way the boys have been playing," Kaino said.