This week we lost great players with injuries in the Super Rugby competition. To make it worse there is long term injuries ending some players World Cup aspirations. National coaches will have sleepless nights over some of their stalwarts injuries.
Springbok flank Juan Smith’s season has been brought to an abrupt end by a torn Achilles tendon which has also put his World Cup hopes in serious doubt.
The Cheetahs skipper, who returned from a calf strain to lead the Cheetahs in Friday’s narrow Super Rugby loss to the Bulls, will undergo surgery next week and could be out for as long as nine months.
Waratahs skipper Phil Waugh is set to spend three months on the sidelines after suffering a bicep injury against the Reds.
Waugh, who is renowned for his ability to play through the pain barrier, failed to return to the field after half-time after receiving a heavy knock.
Tests on Sunday confirmed that Waugh had ruptured his biceps tendon, and the Waratahs’ skipper and most-capped player is expected to need surgery, meaning he will be absent for at least three months.
Waratahs officials anticipate that Waugh will require surgery, which will force him out of the Super Rugby tournament until at least late May.
The Reds are set to be without captain James Horwill for Saturday’s Super Rugby Australian derby with the Brumbies in Canberra.
Horwill was forced from the field with an ankle injury in last Saturday’s 30 – 6 loss to the Waratahs in Sydney.
Schalk Burger, was off the field due to a knee injury, the move later being described as a precautionary measure.
There is more bad news as flank Frans Viljoen is also set for a lengthy absence after tearing a hamstring.
Hooker Adriaan Strauss has already been sidelined by a fractured hand.
That is a lot of good players sidelined. This list might grow on Monday when the team news will come in.
On Rugby Heaven Greg Growden said this,
MONDAY MAUL
Instead the biggest concern for all international coaches with an expanded Super competition that continues until early July, is whether at the end of it they will have enough fit bodies to choose from. With so many local derbies, the injury toll is bound to be high. The Reds-Waratahs match was a fair indicator – every time you focused your binoculars on the combatants there was someone getting treatment. James Horwill was hobbling about as if he had been forced to walk bare-footed over a sizzling barbecue grill. A battered Rod Davies looked as if he had been involved in a train smash. Berrick Barnes was seeing stars, and Tatafu Polota-Nau was getting so knocked about you wondered whether he actually was preparing for an Ultimate Fighting Championship bout. Phil Waugh was a second-half spectator after he damaged his bicep.
In South Africa, they’ve already lost Juan Smith for the season, including the World Cup, after he tore his Achilles tendon in the opening minutes of the Cheetahs-Bulls match. And to think there are still 16 more Australian derbies to go.
Veteran first five-eighth Tony Brown has been drafted into the injury-depleted Highlanders’ Investec Super Rugby squad and will join the team in South Africa on Tuesday.
The 36-year-old former All Black, part of the team’s wider training group, was summoned from Japan as an injury replacement after Lima Sopoaga injured a shoulder in the 23-13 win over the Chiefs on Friday night.
First choice pivot Colin Slade is sidelined after breaking his jaw in a pre-season match, leaving Southland’s Robbie Robinson as the only fit No 10 in the squad.
Reds captain James Horwill will also miss at least a week, after being forced from the field with an ankle injury.
The Queensland casualty ward also gained Peter Hynes (knee), Rod Davies (cheekbone) and Ed Quirke (ribs).
The Cheetahs, Waratahs and Reds all had their captains go down in action this weekend, with the major news being that Cheetahs captain and Springbok flank Juan Smith will likely miss his country’s defence of the World Cup later this year.
Blues skipper Keven Mealamu was the only injury worry, suffering a deep cut to his head that required stitches.
waugh will make a complete recovery in a week…after taking Basson Juice!!
PHIL WAUGH is now known as Phil Lazarus by his teammates after the Waratahs captain yesterday declared himself fit for Friday night’s Super Rugby match against the Crusaders.
On Sunday night, the Waratahs management had given up on Waugh being available for most of the Super Rugby season, believing the left biceps he ruptured against the Reds would need surgery and sideline him for at least three months.
However, by yesterday afternoon, Waugh had decided he would carry on – and, as long as he can pass a fitness test at training this morning, he will head to New Zealand tomorrow to lead the Waratahs against the Crusaders in Nelson.
Although Waugh’s eagerness to play is not as extreme as All Blacks Test forward Dick ”Red” Conway, who had one of his fingers amputated so that he could tour South Africa in 1960, it is certainly a courageous move.
The media arrived at the SFS yesterday to get confirmation that Waugh would be a spectator for several months, and when he said, ‘Hopefully I will be right for Friday night’, many thought he was pulling everyone’s leg.
But it soon became clear Waugh was serious. Even though a MRI scan yesterday confirmed damage to his tendon, the Test breakaway decided, after consulting a specialist, to forgo surgery and play on. ”There’s not much more damage that can be done to it, so it’s pretty much about strengthening it, and it should pull through OK,” Waugh said. ”And I’m going to train as usual.
”There is significant damage to the tendon, which is as expected. But the treatment is probably a little different to what we first thought, and we’re just going to go ahead with the conservative approach – and hopefully I come through it.”
Waugh was relieved that his campaign was not doomed after just two rounds. ”I haven’t slept much over the last 48 hours, and I was obviously a little bit down after the game, thinking I might have three months on the sideline,” Waugh said. ”But the medical staff at the Waratahs have been superb in researching this injury and looking at other options. It now feels far better than I thought it would.
Waugh’s decision revived memories of Conway, who was given a stark choice in 1960 – lop off a finger and go on the All Blacks tour of South Africa, or keep the finger and probably never play football again. Conway, who was also a softball catcher, had damaged the third finger of his right hand trying to catch a foul ball.
The break was extensive and, as New Zealand writer Ron Palenski describes in his book, after it had mended, the finger had a permanent kink. Conway was told by a specialist that if he kept playing football, the finger would break repeatedly, and would have to be set again and again.
To overcome that, between the final selection trial and going to South Africa, Conway had the digit amputated. He played on for eight more years.
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