Jonah Lomu has been named in the All Black reserves for Saturday's opening Tri-Nations championship match against South Africa after scoring two tries in New Zealand A's win against the ACT Brumbies at the weekend.
Flanker Andrew Blowers has been promoted to the starting 15 for the Dunedin clash after going on as substitute in last month's 54-7 thrashing of France. The return of Blowers, who did not start against France because of an ankle injury, has seen Dylan Mika relegated to the bench.
Meanwhile, three New Zealand A players were held briefly by police after an incident during the weekend at a nightclub in Canberra. Officials of the touring New Zealand A team confirmed Craig Innes, Carlos Spencer and Walter Little were held briefly after a dispute at the Seasons Sports Bar in inner-city Canberra in the early hours of Sunday.
A spokeswoman for the Australian Federal Police in Canberra said: "Police attended the bar and they took two people into protective custody . . . They later took a third person into protective custody. No charges were laid and they were released a short time later." New Zealand A team manager Tony Bedford said yesterday: "We've spoken to them individually and as a group. They're claiming that there was no major altercation. One player had been punched and that was the end of the story."
New Zealand officials may now consider using minders to keep leading players out of trouble. In Wellington, acting NZRFU chief executive Bill Wallace said it may eventually become necessary to have minders to safeguard players when they socialised.
"We'll have to consider these sorts of things if these incidents occur in the future," Wallace said. "That would be a sad day but unfortunately the higher the profile of the player the more interest people take in them - and that's likely to be adoration or abuse."
South Africa, beaten 29-19 by Wales last month, have made six changes to play New Zealand in the Dunedin match. Winger Breyton Paulse, halves Dave von Hoesslin and Gaffie du Toit, flanker Andre Venter, experienced lock Mark Andrews and prop Os du Randt come into the Springbok side.
Dropped after the defeat to Wales are Stefan Terblanche, Werner Swanepoel, Braam van Straaten, Rassie Erasmus, Selbourne Boome and Cobus Visagie.
NEW ZEALAND: J Wilson; C Cullen, A Ieremia, D Gibson, T Umaga; A Mehrtens, J Marshall; C Hoeft, A Oliver, K Meeuws, N Maxwell, R Brooke, A Blowers, J Kronfeld, T Randell (capt).
SOUTH AFRIMuller, P Rossouw, J Mulder; G du Toit, D von Hoesslin; O du Randt, N Drotske, C Visagie, M Andrews, K Otto, C Krige, A Venter, G Teichmann (capt).
