Du Toit injury blow for Sharks
SOUTH African rugby was struck a sickening blow yesterday with the confirmation that Pieter-Steph du Toit would not only miss the rest of the Sharks’ Super Rugby campaign, but also the World Cup in England later this year.
The 22-year-old tore knee ligaments during Saturday’s game against the Cheetahs and won’t play again this year.
It is a sad case of lightning striking the same place twice after he missed nearly all of last season with the same injury to the same knee.
Du Toit was in the form of his life in the five rounds of Super Rugby thus far, and was the lock to have taken the most line-out ball in the competition.
There was a changing-ofthemoment during the Sharks versus Bulls match at Loftus three weeks ago, when the under-pressure Victor Matfield went up to Du Toit, tapped him on the cheek, and reportedly said, “I am still top dog, know your place.”
Du Toit, grandson of Springbok prop of the ’60s, Piet “Spiere” du Toit, grew up on his oupa’s renowned Kloovenburg Wine and Olive Estate at Riebeek Kasteel in the beautiful Swartland.
And it is there that he will do much of his convalescing.
“It just seems incredibly unfair that one of the world’s best locks will effectively miss two years of rugby, including a World Cup he had set his heart on,” Sharks forward coach Brad Macleod-Henderson said yesterday.
“He had not only got back to the level he was at before he got injured early in 2014, but had surpassed that form.
“Everybody in South Africa was excited about the role he would play at the World Cup, and certainly we at the Sharks were thrilled at the impact he would have for us in Super Rugby.”
For the Sharks, there is some comfort in the imminent return from injury of last season’s premier locks, Stephan Lewies and Ettienne Oosthuizen.