South African rugby was struck a sickening blow yesterday with the confirmation that one of the country’s best players, Pieter-Steph du Toit, will not only miss the rest of the Sharks’ Super Rugby campaign but also the Rugby World Cup later this year in England.
The 22-year-old tore knee ligaments playing for the Sharks in their 27-10 victory against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein at the weekend and will not play again in 2015.
Sadly for the youngster originally from the Boland, it is a case of lightening striking the same place twice after he missed nearly all of the 2014 season with the same injury to the same knee.
Du Toit was in the form of his life for the Sharks in their five rounds of the Super Rugby competition thus far, and he has topped the statistics as the player to have taken more lineout ball than any other lock in the competition.
An inadvertent mark of respect for Du Toit came three weeks ago when 37-year-old Springbok lineout legend Victor Matfield was compelled to target the youngster in the Sharks v Bulls game at Loftus Versfeld, and there was a changing-of-the-guard moment when the under-pressure Matfield went up to Du Toit, tapped him on the cheek, and reportedly said: “I am still top dog, know your place.”
Du Toit, the grandson of the famously strong Springbok prop of the ‘60s, Piet ‘Spiere’ du Toit, grew up on his oupa’s renowned Kloovenburg Wine and Olive Estate at Riebeek Casteel in the heart of the Swartland, 10 minutes from Malmesbury and an hour from Cape Town. And it is here that he will do much of his convalescing.
“Pieter-Steph is devastated,” Sharks forward coach Brad-Macleod-Henderson said yesterday afternoon. “He is in shock, as are all of us. It just seems incredibly unfair that one of the world’s best locks will effectively now miss two years of rugby, including a World Cup he had set his heart on. He not only had got back to the level he was at before he got injured early in 2014, but had surpassed that form.” - The Star