Ever told your tjommies that you’ll swing past their party, but then you really don’t feel like it on the day and you drop the ‘I came down with a cold’ tactic?

I’m not saying that’s what Bismarck du Plessis and Francois Steyn are doing, but I’d also have second thoughts about flying home to play for the Boks after watching that horror show against Wales last weekend.

No one seems all that certain about exactly what has transpired, but Sport24 say that “mystery surrounds Bismarck, Steyn injuries”.

Information is pretty hard to come by:

In a short, three paragraph media release, SA Rugby confirmed the pair had been “withdrawn from the Springbok group because of injury”, claiming “both players sustained the injuries while playing club rugby in France last weekend”.

The injury news will come as a surprise to many considering both players played the full 80 minutes of Montpellier’s Top 14 final defeat to Castres last weekend and no prior mention was made of any injury concerns – until now.

The release went on to state, without identifying the nature of the injuries, that both players “went for further investigations and specialist opinions and it was decided to rather withdraw them from the Springbok squad for the series against England”.

No details of whether the players would be replaced, nor the length of their layoffs, was mentioned.

The last bit is important, because when it comes to player injuries these press releases usually contain some kind of indication as to when they might be expected back.

In addition, earlier in the week coach Rassie Erasmus had stated that the duo would be ruled out of the first test only, but now their injuries have worsened to the point of being ruled out for the whole series.

Given Frans Steyn’s especially turbulent past with SA Rugby, having ruled himself out of selection a number of times over contractual disputes with the governing body over personal image rights, it’s no surprise that the alarm bells are ringing.

At least we don’t have to stay awake until 11PM to watch the Boks play England this weekend, with kick-off at 5:05PM, because every South African who watched that garbage from Washington was robbed of a few hours worth of sleep.

Here’s hoping the new-look Springbok team, with superhero Siya Kolisi leading the charge, can boss the Poms around at Ellis Park.

[source:sport24]