Blues and All Blacks loose forward Jerome Kaino's knee injury, which requires surgery, means he faces a race against time to be fit for the first test against the British and Irish Lions at Eden Park on June 24.
He will almost certainly miss the Blues' match against the tourists at the same venue on June 7, and will be desperate to win a cap against the Lions after missing selection the last time they were in New Zealand 12 years ago.
Kaino will tomorrow undergo what is a minor surgery to "clean up" a meniscus tear suffered in the defeat to the Hurricanes before last weekend's bye. Recovery time has been estimated at between four to six weeks. If a conservative approach is applied and Kaino is back after six weeks, that's a return on the weekend of June 10-11.
The Blues, like the rest of New Zealand's Super Rugby teams, go into a competition hiatus during the Lions tour, which means Kaino might play a game of club rugby before possibly returning for the mooted All Blacks' warm-up game against Manu Samoa pencilled in for June 16.
"He's got a lot of big things coming up in June so now was the time to get it done," Blues' assistant coach Steve Jackson said this morning. "He was feeling it and it was locking up on him. Potentially he could have played but it was causing discomfort and if it locked up during game time we would have had to replace him anyway."
