Things go from bad to worse for All Blacks as potential back-up captain cited for elbow

Not a great week for the All Blacks.

The all singing, all dancing, all dominant World Champions are looking forward to welcoming the Lions to New Zealand for their Summer Tour, with the first Test taking place on June 24th in Eden Park. Kiwi Warren Gatland is facing arguably the toughest job in world rugby - trying to prepare a scratch - albeit talented - squad for a three-Test series on the home soil of the most dominant rugby team in history. Ireland may have beaten the All Blacks in Chicago, but the back-to-back World Cup winners are a very different animal in the Land of the Long White Cloud. You have to go back to 2009 for the last time they lost at home - a 32-29 loss to South Africa. However, Gatty will have taken some hope from two events that occurred in Bloemfontein this weekend. We already brought you news of All Black skipper Kieran Read's thumb injury, which leaves the Number 8 facing a race against time to be fit for the opening Test in eight weeks. Well, it seems that was not the end of the bad news out of that Cheetahs-Crusaders Super Rugby encounter, as lock Sam Whitelock - the preferred candidate to stand in for Read as captain - has been cited for elbowing an opponent. https://twitter.com/killeroc/status/858610869533626368 The maximum sanction under rule 104(a) is 52 weeks, with the top end normally bringing a nine-week ban. Even the mid-range five weeks would mean Whitelock would miss a lot of preparatory matches with the Crusaders. A statement from Super Rugby confirmed Whitelock has been cited.

"The referee for the match, Federico Anselmi, issued a Yellow Card for the incident which occurred in the 71st minute. "Upon further review of the match footage, the Citing Commissioner deemed in his opinion the incident had met the Red Card threshold for foul play. "The Case is to be considered in the first instance by the SANZAAR Foul Play Review Committee which will take place on 30 April 2017 via video-conference. "All SANZAAR disciplinary matters are in the first instance referred to the Foul Play Review Committee to provide the option of expediting the judicial process."

Watch this space.