The Hurricanes will be without two of their main playmakers for the start of the Super Rugby Pacific season.
Coach Jason Holland confirmed young star Ruben Love and new signing Brett Cameron would both miss their trip to Australia for early matches against the Reds and Rebels after picking up injuries during the pre-season.
Love has been sidelined with an ongoing groin issue, which has limited his involvement during training, while Cameron suffered a grade two calf tear in their warm- up match against the Blues last weekend.
In their absence, Aidan Morgan and Josh Moorby look set to start at No. 10 and No. 15 in Saturday’s opener against the Reds in Brisbane, though Hawke’s Bay’s Harry Godfrey, a former New Zealand under-20 team-mate of Love and Morgan’s, is pushing hard for a potential debut.
Morgan and Godfrey both saw minutes at first-five during the Hurricanes’ come-from-behind 31-26 win over the reigning champion Crusaders in their final pre-season hit-out in Levin on Friday.
It was Godfrey who helped guide the team home after trailing 26-7 early in the second half.
Cameron, a one-test All Black, was set to begin the season as the starting first-five after joining the Hurricanes in a bid to resurrect his once promising rugby career following a short stint in Japan.
Prior to that the 26-year-old played for the Crusaders, where he was a back-up to All Blacks starter Richie Mo’unga.
However, Holland said neither Love nor Cameron would be sighted for at least the first two rounds.
“Rubes has been battling a bit of a groin [issue] and is still a couple of weeks away at a minimum and BC is a couple of weeks away with a grade two calf [tear],” he said.
“He did that last week. Those two are gone [for round one] so Aidan Morgan and Harry Godfrey, as we saw against the Crusaders, are doing the job at the moment.”
While the absences of Love and Cameron have dealt setbacks to Hurricanes squad that will be without star halfback TJ Perenara for most of the season, Holland said he had faith in Morgan and rookie Godfrey.
“It’s obviously not ideal losing two 10s. Rubes hasn’t trained with us much, so that’s a blow but losing BC who has done a lot of our pre-season is also a blow around combinations and confidence in each other.
“Aids and Harry have been around the whole time and I think both of them are really starting to understand our game.”