Sacha at Stormers training and likely to face the Sharks

Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu trained with the DHL Stormers on Monday and is expected to be available for Saturday’s return Vodacom United Rugby Championship derby against the Hollywoodbets Sharks at the DHL Stadium.

The Springbok limped off in the 27th minute of this past weekend’s 29-10 win over the Emirates Lions with what was diagnosed as a hip pointer injury.

It threw his participation in Saturday’s big game, for which more than 30 000 tickets have already been sold, into doubt, with coach John Dobson saying at the post-match press conference that that kind of injury could mean “he will be out for a few days or for a few weeks”.

It turns out that it will be the former, for just two days after the Lions game Feinberg-Mngomezulu was back in training.

“Sacha was out on the field training with us today and we were really pleased to see him back int the action so quickly,” said Stormers forwards coach Rito Hlungwani.

“It always nice when a player like that comes back from injury and we will be happy to have him available. It is possible we could select him this weekend.”

Further good news for Stormers fans is that Evan Roos, the injured No 8, is back on the training field, but Hlungwani says he isn’t quite ready to play a game as yet. Roos’ probable return date was always set at January and that looks likely to be the case for the influential Stormers loose-forward.

But with the Sharks the most immediate concern for the Stormers, it is the fitness of Feinberg-Mngomezulu that will be particularly pleasing, as he showed in playing in tandem with Manie Libbok in the 10/12 axis just how influential he can be, and with fullback Warrick Gelant dovetailing with that pair as a playmaker, it does give the Stormers a lot of attacking option.

The Stormers trained on Monday and will do so again on Tuesday before taking Christmas and Boxing Day off before they come back on Friday for the captain’s practice.

“It’s not really that disruptive to us as we often miss out days of training for various reasons and it is certainly not unusual for us to have just three training sessions in a week,” said Hlungwani.

The Stormers’ team for the Sharks clash will be announced on Friday.