Bok bruiser's injury 'could be serious'
SPOTLIGHT: A few more players have been added to the Stormers’ casualty list.
Evan Roos and Leolin Zas suffered knee injuries in the 33-7 win over Ulster in Cape Town in the United Rugby Championship.
Zas left the field before half-time, while Roos was replaced in the second half, and he looked visibly upset as he walked off.
The Bok forward scored one of the Stormers’ five tries with a great solo run a few minutes before he left the field.
“It looks like a medial ligament, and he hasn’t been scanned yet, but it could be serious,” said Stormers Director of Rugby John Dobson.
“It’s not an ACL, so it could be six weeks or it could be a month.”
Also Read: Stormers win big against Ulster, but one glaring problem remains
The Stormers also lost another Bok in the form of Bongi Mbonambi ahead of kick-off.
The hooker was named on the bench after joining the Stormers from the Sharks, but a hamstring complaint meant that he was replaced by Altus Rabe in the matchday squad.
It just exacerbated the Capetonians’ hooker crisis as they are already without players like Deon Fourie, André-Hugo Venter, JJ Kotzé and Lukhanyo Vokozela.
“I couldn’t believe it. I was so proud of our efforts as a collective to get Bongi in here in 24 hours, and then he comes to me at the captain’s run and says, ‘My hamstring is sore’.
“I said, ‘No, it’s not; get back on that field’,” Dobson added with a laugh.
“He has not played for a long time; we didn’t want to tear it, so he will be back for…he could play next week, let’s put it like that. It was precautionary.”
There is some good news for Dobson’s side as they are set to get a few players back from injury ahead of their clash against the Sharks in early December. They include Keke Morabe, Ruan Ackermann and Cheslin Kolbe.
One of them could also be Ben-Jason Dixon.
“He [Dixon] has got this delayed concussion, which is not great. It’s just not something you are going to mess around with,” Dobson explained.
“The doctors have agreed that we should step back from BJ and let him come to us when he feels better.”
Meanwhile, on Zas, Dobson added: “Zas also picked up some form of knee, so Cheslin is going to be important.”
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