A sore neck is likely to sideline Richie McCaw until the All Blacks' warm-up match in Lower Hutt on August 9, a fixture which could be his last before the first Rugby Championship test against Australia.
While McCaw will be involved in the All Blacks training camp at North Harbour on Wednesday and Thursday - a group which will involve all players from the national team apart from those in the Chiefs - he is considered unlikely to play for his Christchurch club this weekend, the last of the Canterbury metro competition, due to the knocks he picked up in the 10 or so minutes of game time off the reserves bench at Waikato Stadium on Saturday.
It means time is running out on his race for fitness for the first test against Ewen McKenzie's Wallabies in Sydney on August 17 and also suggests Todd Blackadder was right to treat his return from a lengthy sabbatical conservatively. The ruthless nature of the 20-19 semifinal defeat to the Chiefs in Hamilton was a swift reminder of the realities of the game at the top level for McCaw.
Sam Cane is the incumbent No 7 in McCaw's absence, but he too has had a limited recent diet of rugby. He had the briefest of cameos for Tanerau Latimer in Hamilton and was on the reserves bench behind Latimer a fortnight earlier against the Blues at Eden Park.