Tayler Adams suffered an ankle injury inside the first minute of Southland's pre-season loss to Northland in Auckland yesterday.
Southland trailed 19-5 at halftime before losing 24-12.
Adams has returned to Southland after a stint playing Australia, which included being part of this year's Melbourne Rebels Super Rugby squad.
After coming off the bench in the Stags' opening pre-season games against North Otago and Otago, Adams' first start for the Stags this year ended abruptly.
Soon after the loss to Northland, Stags coach Dave Hewett said he was not sure of the extent of Adams' injury and also what it meant for the team in the lead-up to the competition opener against Hawke's Bay in Invercargill on Sunday week.
Just a day earlier, fellow first five-eighth Greg Dyer
picked up an injury at training which is expected to sideline him for about six weeks.
It meant when Adams went down against Northland, co-captain James Wilson shifted in from second five-eighth.
''James did a good job filling in there,'' Hewett said.
Hewett was delighted with the first-half performance against Northland but was
not so thrilled with what the Stags produced in the second half.
''Again we played a really good half. I was really pleased with the intensity and accuracy. Being on a club ground we were right there [near the] sideline and you could hear the level of talk there.
''We just let ourselves down in the second half. We need to play for 80 minutes.
''I wanted to give as many players as possible a run so there were a lot of changes at halftime.''
The Stags travelled to and from Queenstown yesterday for the game.
The players will now be given the weekend off before on Monday turning towards the challenge of Hawke's Bay to start Southland's Mitre 10 Cup campaign.
Overall, Hewett was pleased with the progress over the three pre-season games but said there was plenty of improvement still needed.
-By Logan Savory
