There are fears New Zealand fullback Kalyn Ponga has fractured his arm and could miss the rest of the World Cup after he bravely played 20 minutes with the injury and scored two tries in a cracking battle with Reece Walsh.
Ponga will have scans on Friday to determine the severity of the injury after he hurt his left arm while tackling Cameron Munster in Thursday’s 24-22 loss to Australia.
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He would be a huge loss for the Kiwis after he scored one of the individual tries of the year when he stepped past Walsh in the second half, with his Kangaroos counterpart bundling him into touch earlier in the game off a similar break.
But there’s a chance that’s the last we’ll see of him at the tournament.
“We’re not too sure yet. It’s a possible fracture of the arm, but he’s going to go for scans and we’re not going to make any call on him right now where he’s at,” coach Stacey Jones said.
“He played about 20 minutes (with the injury). He carried on, so he toughed it out.
“It was a couple of minutes (after the tackle when we realised he was hurt) because I think they had scored a try, and that’s when we were told what it possibly was so he had to come off.
“He couldn’t catch a ball or anything like that. He was in a lot of discomfort.
“He’s OK, he’s upbeat. We’ll get the scans done and we’ll see where it goes from there. He’s obviously disappointed, but there’s a bit of upbeat about him too. He really wants to still be involved.”
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If Ponga can’t play, Titans gun Keano Kini will likely be named in the No. 1 jersey against the Cook Islands next weekend.
Kini came onto the field for the final ten minutes and looked lively, running for 49 metres and breaking a couple of tackles.
According to Jones, Kini will be trusted to do the job.
“He’s the obvious player to come in and this is his third campaign. He knows what’s required,” Jones said.
Kiwis skipper James Fisher-Harris is widely regarded as one of the toughest men in the game, and he was in awe of what Ponga was able to do with one arm.
“He’s a tough bugger,” Fisher-Harris said.
“He’s got lot of pride in the black and white jersey and he didn’t want to let his teammates down.
“I thought he did an outstanding job. He’s just a freakish player, but he’s also one of those tough players, you know what I mean? Feeling for him right now, but fingers crossed it’s not too bad.”
While the injury will dominate the headlines this weekend, Ponga’s highlights reel from the game will be watched for years to come.
His coach was stunned when he stepped past Walsh to score in the second half but it didn’t come as a surprise given what Ponga did for Newcastle this year.
“(I was thinking) what a freak,” Jones replied when asked what was going through his mind.
“What he did for Newcastle and how he played his footy in the last sort of month (was amazing), and then to come into this team and play off the back of what these guys did (was just as good).
“We dominated so many areas of that game and he was a beneficiary from that. Playing behind this forward pack, he probably felt really comfortable.”
Fans are already frothing at the prospect of these two teams meeting again in the final, with the Kiwis confident that they can reverse the result if they get the chance.
They dominated the middle of the field and had several chances to open up big leads, but they coughed up two long-range tries off interceptions and couldn’t turn their territorial advantage into points.
“We’ll see when we get there,” Fisher-Harris replied when asked if he was confident of flipping the result.
“But I back this squad against anybody.”
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