VIDEO: Bok flank doubtful for URC quarters
VIDEO: The Bulls’ Marco van Staden could miss out on his team’s United Rugby Championship quarterfinal against Benetton on Saturday.
Van Staden was one of a plethora of Springboks who struggled with niggling injuries during the game.
The flank recently returned to the playing field after he sustained a Medial Collateral Ligament injury in the humbling 14-47 loss to Leinster in the URC.
Kurt-Lee Arends and Canan Moodie both were down at times but none looked overly serious.
Although it is still unclear what the extent and type of injury is that Van Staden sustained, Jake White, the Bulls’ Director of Rugby confirmed that he would likely miss the Benetton clash this weekend.
“Unfortunately at the back end of a competition, it starts to get tougher and tougher. It starts to get more and more physical as the margins get smaller. And it does come with the risk of losing a few guys,” White told the media at the post-match press conference.
“I would think that a guy like Marco won’t be available next week but the others seem to be ok. They seemed like it was a bump and a bruise.
“But it’s always difficult. Tomorrow morning when you get up and get back home and you get to the medical room, things that you think aren’t serious can overnight flare up or swell.
“We’ve been lucky enough, we’ve changed our squad a lot this year, and if it means Sergeal Petersen has to come in.
“We’ve got Marcel back soon and we’ve used Mpilo Gumede. We are lucky that some of those guys have been part of the group the last couple of weeks,” White said.
He was full of praise for his front row that managed to dominate a World Cup-winning front row for most of the game.
“Our front row was outstanding. Take nothing away, they are World Cup winners – it’s Ox and Vincent and Bongi – and what gives us confidence is that our front row can compete against what has been touted as the best front row in the world,” a proud White exclaimed.
He acknowledged that it wasn’t a perfect performance against the Sharks, and wrote it down to rustiness having been off for almost two weeks.
“Playing in Durban the handling is always an issue, it is one of the venues with the weather that is difficult to play in.
“But when I look back at it now, there is no doubt that having a week off and playing against a team that played last week comes with a challenge as well.
“At the end of the day we ended up getting the five points, we ended up winning the game.
“And that is obviously what we really wanted to achieve when we got here this week.
“We’ve played really well and again we have scored four tries and again, even though we made so many mistakes, we still looked like we could score from anywhere.
“What I also enjoyed was when we had to maul and score tries at the end our forwards can do that as well. And considering it was a pack that I had changed, I had new props on and I had a new lock on and yet we still looked cohesive.
“We couldn’t afford to just win the game, because if we hadn’t won by eleven points or more we would’ve ended up not giving ourselves a chance to come second.
“That was the challenge I laid out to the players. It took us a long time but we got the four tries and that is going to be massive for us as a group, it’s going to be massive for our confidence.”
