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Cape Town - New Zealand head coach Steve Hansen has decided to leave Sonny Bill Williams out of his selection thinking for their clash with Australia.
Williams, who started the Rugby Championship fixture against South Africa on Saturday, played for an hour as he looks to regain his fitness.
However, Hansen has confirmed that his comeback won't involve facing the Wallabies as he will instead be involved in Mitre 10 Cup matches.
"He is going to play a couple of games over the next couple of weeks, which will be good," Hansen told reporters as he looks to August 10.
"He'll be available for Perth, but we're not going to take him. We're going to get him to play two, or three... as many games as we can get in between there and Auckland."
READ: All Black skipper: Draw felt like a loss
Williams put in a solid performance outside an untested half-back combination of TJ Perenara and Richie Mo'unga in the 16-16 draw in Wellington and Hansen revealed he was pleased with the centre's shift.
"The key thing we asked him to do was stay there and stay injury free. He did that," the coach continued.
"He hasn't played a lot of rugby and was rusty so we won't get too judgmental about his rugby performance, the fact was his body held together that was encouraging."
