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Springboks rocked by Eben Etzebeth World Cup injury scare
By Online Editors
The Stormers and Springboks will be holding out with bated breath on news of Eben Etzebeth.
It appears that the 27-year-old lock may have ‘broken his hand’ during the side’s 22-41 Super Rugby defeat to the Lions in Johannesburg on Saturday.
This is certainly not good news for the Springboks nor the Stormers, who already sit without the services of duo Siya Kolisi (knee) and Pieter-Steph du Toit (shoulder) due to injuries.
To make matters worse, it appears that Capetonians’ injury count is not subsiding as Fleck revealed the ever-increasing casualty list following the gruelling defeat in Johannesburg.
Aside from the Bok giant, young lock Cobus Wiese could also miss next weekend’s actions after he picked up a hamstring injury.
“Our injury list is long,” Head coach Fleck said, adding: “It’s not just Siya [Kolisi] there are some big-name players we are missing like Pieter-Steph du Toit, Eben [Etzebeth] potentially broke his hand and Cobus Wiese did his hamstring so the injury list is long.
“We are really going to have to bring some youngsters through now and see how they go,”
It was not a good day at the office for the Stormers. Just before kick-off on Saturday, senior hooker Scarra Ntubeni was ruled out and replaced by Chad Solomon for his first Super Rugby start.
The Stormers struggled with Lions’ ruthless attack. They only managed to produced three tries compared to the hosts’ six.
Reflecting on the game, Fleck added that he is disappointed, but admitted the injuries did not help his team.
“Obviously, I am disappointed with the loss but we were in it and did well to fight back in the first half. We were under some pressure but just too many disruptions to our team, too many injuries and that affected the way we played,”
The Cape Town-based team currently sit in 11th position on the overall log with two home games remaining against the Sunwolves and Sharks.
They will need to win both games with a bonus-point and hope that other results go their way to secure a playoff spot.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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