Rassie Erasmus on Etzebeth prognosis and Kriel incident
Springboks director of rugby Rassie Erasmus has confirmed that star lock Eben Etzebeth is set to be sidelined for roughly 10 days.
The Sharks enforcer came off after just 30 minutes during South Africa's 18-3 victory over Scotland in Marseille in their Rugby World Cup opener at the Stade Velodrome.
“It's always tough in a game like that - opening game of the World Cup - but I do like the honesty when he said ‘Guys, I’ve got a sore shoulder’. You know, 85-per-cent-ready Eben won’t be able to contain a team like Scotland.
“At this stage it looks like a seven to ten day injury, like Jean Kleyn was, and like Canan (Moodie) was.
“So there is some time to manage him, but the scans will give us a definite on it. We might find out it’s much more serious, but at this stage it looks like a ten-day injury.
“Today we'll probably have hundred per cent clarity, I believe, on Eben and what’s the extent of that. Then we'll have to make the right call, because we can't have players who's 70 or 80 per cent (who don't) turn to a hundred per cent in the next seven to ten days. We will have to think clearly.”
He also spoke to press speculation around the possible citing of centre Jessie Kriel, who collided with Jack Dempsey just two minutes into the game.
“We are really comfortable; there hasn’t been a citing (and) I’m pretty sure there won’t be a citing.
“If it isn’t direct head contact - and it wasn’t, it was tackled on the ball and then he moved up after tackling on the ball. I've seen a few stills where people just (show) after direct contact to the ball.
“If you took it a millisecond or a second or two back, you'll see that he clearly tackled on the ball. So we're very happy with how it was refereed.
“I think Finn Russell's call was much closer. Unfortunately, he got injured then, I think that deflected a little bit from the action that he did, but we were happy with the decision that was made.
“Obviously there’s some time to do citings still but I'll be very surprised for the indirect contact - with first contact on the ball - that there will be anything from that.”
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Not sure they the article doesn’t hit on TMO this year, that’s were they were putting focus right. The fact the other areas haven’t improved shows just how poor the comp is at focusing on its direction. There should still have been further gains in both those areas this year even it if didn’t have the same focus as others. The whistle to restart time, like touch finders of 26 seconds, surely has to be a key focus area next year. Why should a side be given so much time to kick for touch? Cut that down to 5 or 10 seconds, penalties both become less of key stalling/defensive strategy, and become more ‘live’ with tap kicks becoming much more favourable quick actions. Theres absolutely no reason we have to wait over 10 secs for the preferred kicker to walk up and try and take maximum advantage, especially when half the time its just a delay tactic to give the forwards time to plan, as the kicker hardly even trys to find the corner with his kick, anyone could have kicked it straight out for the lineout.
Go to commentsShame. Hope something else can be arranged.
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