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WP face anxious 24 hour wait on kingpin Kitshoff

rugby19 January 2021 12:46| © SuperSport
By:Gavin Rich
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Steven Kitshoff © Gallo Images

The DHL Western Province coaching staff has confirmed that they face a wait of another day or so before ace front-row forward Steven Kitshoff can be cleared to play in Saturday’s Carling Currie Cup semifinal against the Cell C Sharks at Newlands.

According to assistant coach Dawie Snyman, Kitshoff is yet to train this week due to Covid protocol procedures that make him a potentially doubtful starter for the play-off game, which doubles as possibly also WP’s last ever competitive game at Newlands.

The chances of Newlands’ life being extended for another week depends on whether they can secure a home final, something that will require a victory against the Sharks coupled with a Xerox Lions win over the Vodacom Bulls in Saturday’s other semifinal.

“Steven has an issue which has stopped him from training with us this week but we are hopeful that will all be sorted out so that he can play for us against the Sharks,” said Snyman.

“It is a Covid protocol issue. We are waiting to hear from the doctor on whether it is possible for him to play, it all depends on establishing the degree of risk around contacts Steven has had. It will be the doctors call and we are waiting for him to come back to us. We will know by Wednesday whether he will be available to play for us or not.”

Should the Springbok World Cup winner not be available to face the Sharks it will be a massive blow to WP on several levels. For a start, Kitshoff is one of the team leaders, and while regular captain Siya Kolisi is back from injury this week, the Bok captain hasn’t played in quite a while and could do with his regular second in command’s presence in this important game.

On another level, it will be a blow because the powerful WP scrum is precisely what the Sharks will fear most going into this match.

It is an area they have struggled in against the bigger union teams in the Currie Cup season, with the Lions and the Toyota Cheetahs both shutting them out in recent matches. With Thomas du Toit expected to be back for the Sharks after his own injury lay-off, Kitshoff’s absence, if it comes to that, will certainly even up a forward battle that at full strength WP would be expected to dominate as the first step towards winning the game.

According to Snyman, the rest of the squad should be at full strength with the exception of the continued absence of long-term injury concerns such as 2019 World Rugby Player of the Year Pieter-Steph du Toit.

“We put ourselves under our own lockdown last week to ensure that we didn’t have too many Covid disruptions and the guys all did really well in ensuring that they carried that through. They trained on their own and came back on Monday surprisingly sharp. I was quite surprised at the quality of Monday’s training sessions,” said the WP assistant coach.

If Kolisi is back to lead it does pose an interesting selection quandary for head coach John Dobson given that Jaco Coetzee was the possibly the best WP player in the narrow win over the Cheetahs. The former Sharks schoolboy was all over the field in the Bloemfontein game and of course he was wearing the No6 jersey of openside flank that Kolisi normally wears when he plays.

Kolisi could switch to blindside flank or even No8, where he started his ill-fated first game of 2020 for the Stormers against the Hurricanes at the beginning of last February. Not that Dobson would be eager to move the impressive Juarno Augustus from his regular position at the back of the scrum.

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