'Outsider' Slade the All Blacks' forgotten man

All Black Colin Slade leaves the field during the Rugby World Cup quarter final against Argentina. Photo / Richard Robinson

As forgotten men go, Colin Slade is right up there with the best of them.

As Dan Carter today told a packed press conference in Auckland of his anger at missing out on the World Cup today due to a groin injury, Slade was in Christchurch sorting out the paperwork on his earthquake-damaged St Albans house; filling in time before surgery on his groin next week.

Slade's World Cup dream was cruelly cut short by an adductor injury bizarrely similar to Carter's. Although he has just turned 24, five years younger than Carter, and is likely to play in another World Cup, his mental anguish is just as acute.

But unlike Carter, he doesn't have a role in talking tactics and planning with the All Blacks during their mid-week sessions. Slade flew straight home to Christchurch after having a scan on his injury suffered in the Argentina quarter-final on October 9 and was back in Auckland for last weekend's semifinal against Australia.

He will fly up for Sunday's final against France, but once he gets to the All Blacks hotel in downtown Auckland, he will inevitably feel like an outsider.

"It's hard watching the games I suppose," Slade said. "You know, all the hype around the All Blacks and the World Cup, and it has changed really quickly from being part of the team. It almost feels like being on the outside looking in. Whenever I go up for the team I hang around with them and they try their best to include you but it's frustrating not fully being involved."

His frustrations are understandable and are compounded by the two broken jaws he received while playing for the Highlanders in this year's Super Rugby competition. That caused him to miss the majority of the season with his new team after he made the trip south from the Crusaders. "I'm looking forward to putting this year behind me," he said.

Carter's injury occurred while he put the finishing touches on his goalkicking at the captain's run a day before the October 2 All Blacks v Canada pool game in Wellington.

Slade was excited about wearing the number 10 jersey in the Canada match and had a steady game after a few early nerves. Still, he was poised to take over the pivotal role vacated by Carter for the remainder of the tournament until he injured his groin when tackled in the first half of the Argentina quarter-final at Eden Park a week later.

"I felt something go and I knew it wasn't right, but I tried to run it off because I wanted to stay out there," he said. "But I didn't want to let the team down so getting off was the best thing.

"Obviously when Dan Carter went down it was my opportunity and to be hampered by injury - I was pretty frustrated that I couldn't take that opportunity. I would have loved to have kept playing. But that's rugby I suppose, you get injuries, but it's really bad timing and it's been a really bad year for me injury-wise."

It was Slade's 24th birthday the day after the Argentina match. After receiving the news that he would have to leave the All Blacks inner sanctum because of his tournament-ending injury, he went out for what was supposed to be a celebratory lunch with his parents and younger brother and sister.

"It was supposed to be a happy occasion but it was a pretty miserable one," he said.

Now Slade has been overtaken, in the public's eyes anyway, by Aaron Cruden, the 22-year-old third-choice first-five who is poised for World Cup glory.

In the meantime, Slade can only busy himself with paperwork and tidy up his earthquake-damaged house. He and fiancee Emma, who he will marry in January, own the house and have been paid out the full amount by the Earthquake Commission. He said he was in "the queue like everyone else" as far as a payout from his private insurer on the house.

Being stuck in line and waiting for an opportunity is something Slade is getting a little sick of.