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More crock than Bok

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Pat Lambie and Heinrich Brüssow at St Peter’s College. Picture: Duif du Toit / Gallo Images
Pat Lambie and Heinrich Brüssow at St Peter’s College. Picture: Duif du Toit / Gallo Images

Springbok doctor Craig Roberts last week inadvertently diagnosed the cause of the anxiety from which coach Heyneke Meyer must surely be suffering.

Roberts was speaking to the media this week during a Springbok training camp in Johannesburg in which more than half of the invited 44 players were unable to participate.

The array of medical braces (for necks, knees and ankles), plaster casts (for broken bones) and bandages (for joints and muscles) sported by players attending what, in effect, was the Boks’ rugby World Cup kickoff was horrifying.

The sight of Jean de Villiers, Patrick Lambie, Cobus Reinach, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Oupa Mohoje, Heinrich Brüssow and Lood de Jager standing on the sidelines, taped up or supported by remedial contraptions, provided a strong visual of the injury scourge sweeping through the Springboks and Super Rugby.

Roberts, who was the Sharks’ physician since 2000 and joined the national team in 2008, has been through the mill when it comes to treating broken Boks.

“Every time you play a game there is a risk of injury, but you can’t go into a World Cup not having played. If I had my way, no one would play, but then they would go in under-cooked,” he said.

And Roberts’ prognosis was alarming: “You can expect to pick up two injuries a game – that’s what the statistics show us.”

So, if all five South African sides are involved in a round of Super Rugby, there will be 10 injuries, on average.

Meyer and company are on tenterhooks waiting on medical dispatches and hoping the latest casualties don’t include key players.

Despite the comprehensive monitoring of players, it is not yet possible to predict serious injuries.

“We can but hope that [when they occur] these aren’t severe injuries as we get closer and closer to the World Cup,” Roberts noted.

South Africa’s biggest concern is skipper De Villiers, while the young Sharks lock Du Toit has sustained another untimely injury. The strapping lad was very much in Meyer’s plans until he injured the same knee that resulted in him missing most of last season.

Du Toit’s hopes of recovering in time have improved and Roberts says he’ll be “given as much time as we can” – but with the World Cup squad due to be named on August 31, it is going to be touch and go.

Adding to Meyer’s woes was Sharks scrum half Reinach who returned home from his team’s tour down under with a broken hand.

It may be some solace for Meyer that his All Black and Wallaby counterparts Steven Hansen and Michael Cheika are also watching the injury barometer.

Hansen, in particular, has seen heavy hits on his resources at fly half. Aaron Cruden, a shoo-in for the All Blacks’ World Cup squad, had a season-ending knee injury, while Beauden Barrett is out for four weeks, also due to a knee injury, with no guarantee he will regain peak form in that time.

In addition, Dan Carter has for the past few seasons been an almost permanent casualty and does not look nearly the player he was at his peak, while there is great concern about the concussion suffered by veteran skipper Richie McCaw.

The Wallabies’ Cheika had hoped to run the rule over Matt Toomua this season as his possible No 10 but the Brumbies pivot has been out of action because of an ankle injury.

A number of other Aussie candidates for the World Cup, such as prop Scott Sio, flank Richard Pocock and fly half Quade Cooper, have also battled with injuries.

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