Stormers face season opener without du Toit

There has been a blow for the Stormers ahead of their muchawaited season-opening rugby clash against the Lions at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria next Saturday.

Springbok flank Pieter-Steph du Toit will miss the start of SA’s domestic competition as he continues to recover from a leg injury.

The 2019 World Rugby player of the year suffered the injury during the Stormers’ loss to the Blues in late February.

The domestic season is set to get under way on September 26 when the Vodacom Bulls take on the Sharks and the Lions battle the Stormers on Super Fan Saturday. Stormers coach John Dobson said he hoped his star player would only miss the opening two matches of the domestic season.

“Pieter-Steph is not ready yet and the truth is that we are not sure when he will be ready,” Dobson said. “It was predicted to be a six-month injury.

“The nerve in the muscle is damaged which protects the knee. The muscle around that nerve is not growing back fast enough.

“It is showing signs of growth, though, and our hope is that he only misses the first two games. He will miss the start, but he is training full out.’”

“We are massively scared of injury, to be honest. It is probably not since school that they have gone six or seven months like this [not playing].

“As a coaching group our major fear is injury. We have seen the stats from the other competitions.

“The players are really keen to play mentally but at the same time we are really worried about injuries.

“We have pushed the players as far as we could over the last few weeks to try to get as close as we could within the regulations.”

Dobson added that the Stormers were likely to take a squad of 25 or 26 players to Loftus Versfeld, depending on the Covid-19 directives from SA Rugby.

The Loftus double-header will be followed by the Castle Lager Springbok Showdown at Newlands, after which a doubleround local competition between seven franchises kicks off on the weekend of October 10.

Details of the local competition, with each of the teams facing the others home and away and every side enjoying two byes during the competition, will be released in due course.

In what is another first for South African rugby, the local competition will continue over Christmas and New Year and will culminate in the semifinals (January 16) and the final on January 23.