Springbok centre De Wet Barry on Wednesday lost his battle against a hamstring injury and has subsequently been forced to withdraw from the team to face New Zealand in a Vodacom Tri-Nations Test at Ellis Park on Saturday.

His place at inside centre will be taken by provincial teammate Robbie Fleck, who was bracketed with Barry at inside centre when coach Nick Mallett announced his team on Wednesday morning. Mallett earlier said Barry would have to pass a fitness test, but physiotherapist Wayne Diesel later decided not to put Barry through the test.

"We don't want to risk him. He ran well and without discomfort for 20 minutes, but I decided not to test him today," Diesel said. Barry said he felt much better, but didn't want to risk the injury by putting too much pressure on it.

Team doctor Frans Verster said Barry is definitely not ready to play. "He still feels light pain when doing functional leg stretches, so he will need more time to recover." There was good news, however, about substitute fullback Percy Montgomery and loosehead prop Robbie Kempson, who were both bedridden by flu on Tuesday.

Montgomery took full part in Wednesday's training session at St David's Marist College, while Kempson had a 30-minute session with Verster that consisted of running and a bit of touch rugby. The doctor pronounced himself happy with Kempson, who was most affected by the flu bug that hit the camp.

"His pulse tempo is good and he is recovering well thanks to the rest he had. With flu you are always worried there could be complications with the heart muscle, but his temperature and fever is back to normal. There were no chest pains and he wasn't short of breath or feeling lame while we were running.

"We allowed him only 30 minutes today, but that's just as a precautionary measure. Come Saturday he should be fully recovered."