The Cell C Sharks will start the defence of the Absa Currie Cup title they won last year feeling the effects of having gone further than all the other teams in the recently completed Vodacom Super Rugby season.

Apart from the fact that they’ve lost more players to the Springboks than most, plus a few players have headed overseas, the Sharks arrived back in Durban after their Super Rugby semifinal loss to the Crusaders with injuries in areas they can ill afford it.

Both locks, Stephan Lewies and Etienne Oosthuizen, have injuries that make them doubtful starters for Saturday’s domestic competition opener against Griquas in Kimberley. Assistant coach Sean Everitt has given the pair’s chances of playing as 50 / 50, with the problem being that there isn’t too much available back-up now that the strong and abrasive Anton Bresler has headed overseas.

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Willem Alberts was used as a lock when needed during the Super Rugby season, but he is with the Boks, and the now Japan based Jean Deysel option is also no longer there. So unless both Lewies and Oosthuizen make a full recovery this week and are declared fit, the Sharks may have to call on Marco Wentzel, who was a Bok as long ago as 2002, for the Griquas game.

The other locks in the picture are Wiehan Hey and JC Astle, who has joined the Sharks from Boland.

“If we need Etienne or Stephan this weekend they may be able to play at a push, but their chances of playing are at best 50 / 50 and we are concerned about them,” said Everitt.

The other area that is of perhaps an even bigger concern is scrumhalf, where the departure of Charl McLeod to France has left a hole that has been made bigger by the Springbok call-up to Cobus Reinach. Conrad Hoffmann has been recruited from the Brumbies to replace McLeod but is not available to play this week, while Stefan Ungerer, who was on the reserve bench and played briefly during Super Rugby, is out for four weeks with a finger injury.

The Sharks have made a habit in recent seasons of tripping up against the Griquas early in the competition – last year they lost at Kings Park in the season pipe-opener – so they will need to unearth a new scrumhalf quickly. Hanco Venter and Cameron Wright are the two players Everitt mentioned as possible solutions to the problem.