Venter a rare ray for battling Bulls
The Blue Bulls received a rare snippet of good news on Monday, when it was confirmed that midfielder Francois Venter has recovered sufficiently from injury to return to the training field on Monday.
Venter, who missed the last two weeks after taking a blow to the mouth in the Round Two encounter with Griquas, looks set to shore up the struggling Bulls' midfield.
After an impressive 24-all draw with Western Province at Newlands in Week One and a 15-9 win against Griquas in Pretoria a week later, the Bulls have now slumped to back-to-back defeats – going down 23-62 to the Golden Lions (at Loftus Versfeld) and 18-34 to the Sharks in Durban.
While Venter's return will lift the mood in the Bulls camp, it is a rare ray of sunshine on the injury front.
Morné Mellett (stiffness in neck) and Jono Ross (concussion) will only train on Wednesday, Blue Bulls team doctor Org Strauss said on Monday.
Tony Jantjies (hip) and Travis Ismaiel (knee) will be out for another week, whilst Jean Cook and Callie Visagie will be out for another month due to a thumb and ankle injury respectively.
The long term injury group are still the same – Basil Short (knee, five months), Francois Hougaard (ankle, five months), Cornell Hess (knee, six weeks), Deon Stegmann (shoulder, five months), Arno Botha (knee, two months), Pierre Spies (bicep, three months), Louis Fouché (knee, three months).
