All Blacks vs Portugal last night what position was Keven Mealamu selected to play from the Reserve bench.?

Question

All Blacks vs Portugal last night what position was Keven Mealamu selected to play from the Reserve bench.?

Answer 1

As mentioned Mealamu went on at flanker in place of Jerry Collins.  He has had significant experience there having played for Waikato age grade teams as an openside flanker while living in Tokoroa then making the NZ Secondary Schools team in the same position while attending school in Auckland.  

Playing Keven there served two objectives in that it got Keven additional game time and allowed for the injury to Reuben Thorn and resting of Ritchie McCaw.

Go the AB's

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Answer 2

Yea / kevin came on as a blindside replacement .. They had no problems as he has had experience there  and the Coaches wanted to give him a run to get him a bit more focused on his running game ..

Answer 3

Quite a few guys playing out of position there. Kevin at Flanker, Carl Hayman at Lock, Toeava at Wing as we all know.

Answer 4

yeh he played blindside flanker (number 6). He went on for Jerry Collins. Would of been fun for him, every forward wishes they were a flanker! To be honest a fair few backs wish they could be a loosie as well.

This was a pre-determined move, Henry mentioned it before the game. He selected 4 tight forwards on the bench because he wanted them all to get some gametime.

Answer 5

Flanker !

Apparently, he played a bit on the side of the scrum when he was in high school.

Good training for the guys - had to laugh seeing Hayman jumping in the line-out.