Neck injury likely to rule Kitshoff out for a while

Experienced Springbok prop Steven Kitshoff has suffered a neck injury that looks set to rule him out of the initial parts of the Stormers’ United Rugby Championship (UCR)  campaign and the national team’s end-of-year tour. 

Kitshoff, who captained the Stormers to the inaugural URC title in 2022, sustained ligament injuries in his neck during a training camp with the Cape squad in the Wilderness on the Cape Garden Route and though he did not have details available, coach John Dobson was in a bleak mood. 

“Kitsie has done some ligaments and while I am not completely sure as yet how long he will be out for, it will be for a period of time,”  Dobson said.

 “At the moment it looks like it will be a six-week reassessment date. As you know, any type of neck injury is always problematic and with ligaments it is difficult to tell too, but as it stands it is six to eight weeks minimum.

“Neck ligaments are always a dangerous cocktail, so we’ve got to be conservative about it,” he said.

If Kitshoff is out for six weeks it would take him to about a fortnight before the start of the Springboks’ end-of-year  tour of Scotland, England and Wales, which might just squeeze him into contention for that trip. 

However, he would be lacking match practice, which is what he has been trying to work at in the few Currie Cup games he has played.

However, it is the Stormers who will feel they’ve been dealt a particularly bad hand by having Kitshoff ruled out of the start of their season, as they have been suffering a minor injury crisis for a couple of reasons — among them the unpopular decision to schedule the Currie Cup for what should be the SA off-season and then the URC preseason. 

But Dobson says he won’t go outside the province or the franchise in search of reinforcements.

 “We have Kitsie, Ali Vermaak and Lizo Gqoboka, all of them loosehead props, out now, but the market is done,”  the Stormers coach said. 

“You can’t replace a Steven Kitshoff, as you don’t get those sort of players hanging on trees, but I think we’ve got enough, with Leon Lyons coming back to us from Griquas and we also have Sti Sithole fit again.

“We also have a promising youngster in Brok Harris who might just have to be pulled into action again,” he said in reference to the veteran who doubles as the Stormers scrum coach. 

“But you just have to play with the cards you have been dealt. We just hope that Kitsie is ready in six or eight weeks and not longer than that.” 

SuperSport.com