Goosen faces lengthy lay-off after surgery
MEDICAL UPDATE: The Bulls’ mercurial Springbok flyhalf Johan Goosen looks set to spend the best part of the next year on the sidelines.
The results of a scan confirmed that Goosen, 29, damaged his anterior cruciate knee ligament in the win over Cardiff last Saturday.
Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White revealed on Friday that Goosen will undergo surgery.
“It is between seven and nine months,” he said of the expected lay-off for a player capped 13 times by the Boks.
Goosen went down 15 minutes into the Bulls United Rugby Championship 29-19 win over Cardiff at Arms Park last Saturday.
White added that he will take a “conservative” approach with the seasoned flyhalf – who has a history of knee problems.
“We are not in a hurry to get him back on the field,” White told a virtual media briefing.
White said deciding when to bring a player back is not an exact science.
(Article continues below video …)
He pointed to Springbok lock Rudolph Snyman’s situation, who re-injured his ACL, in only his second game back from a lengthy lay-off.
“I don’t think it is based on whether you do it [the return to play] for older players,” the Bulls boss told @rugby365com.
“Have we left Gio [Aplon] to do another month or two of rehab, would he have been guaranteed of not doing his ACL again?
“The answer from the medical staff is: ‘No!’
“With a guy like Johan Goosen, who is important to us going forward, I am going to err on the side of caution.”
White said there is no exact date for Goosen’s return.
With Goosen unlikely to play before June next year, he said he is looking at the 2022/23 season – starting in September next year.
“If he is available for Round One it will be great, but if it is only Round Three or Four, then so be it,” White said.
“He is important to us and I don’t want to rush him.
“We have Morne [Steyn] and Chris [Smith], who are playing really well.”
He said there is also some young talent that could come through while they are working on Goosen’s rehabilitation.
The news of Goosen’s surgery comes in the wake of White’s declaration that he is not a fan of Europe’s 4G synthetic pitches.
“It’s a different kind of pitch. To be honest – and it is probably not the right thing to say to you [media] – I am not a fan of 4G pitches.
“I understand why they [teams in Europe] do it with the weather, water tables and freezing in the north.
“I wonder if injuries like Goosen’s can be prevented if we played on grass.
“Hardly anything happened there. He just turned his leg to change direction and I think the fact that his foot got stuck in the turf, which doesn’t give [way] as much as grass turf, is the reason why you can get a lot of knee and ankle injuries.”
@king365ed
@rugby365com
