After the knee injury to Pieter-Steph du Toit Mozart rushed to get an unsubstantiated report onto this site and kept on by repeating resultant reports that Du Toit would be out for the year. Despite repeated warnings by thinking members of the site that there was no scan done and no specialist report(s) available - some members went ballistic.
It is therefore with hesitation that I bring the following report to the attention of members:-
"The Bulls face a tense 24 hour wait to find out if Springbok lock Victor Matfield will be out of the game for a prolonged period.
It was announced that Matfield would be "rested" according to SARU’s agreement with the franchises this week, but supersport.comrevealed earlier this week that Matfield actually has a knee injury which could be much more serious than expected.
While the Bulls team release continued to pronounce Matfield as being “rested” this week, Ludeke did admit that the lock has a knee injury and thus wouldn’t technically 'be resting'.
Matfield will see knee specialist Daan du Plessis on Thursday to ascertain the extent of the injury, but the initial prognosis is a three to four week layoff for the big lock.
Depending on the state of his knee, and how much cartilage damage there is, it may change as well, with the Bulls waiting on the final word before announcing their decision.
Ludeke said they couldn’t technically rest Matfield because according to the agreement they needed to inform SA Rugby a week in advance when they will be resting players.
"Victor has an injury, we need to declare him the Thursday before the next week that we are going to rest him.
"You can’t take a player through the week and hope he will play and then if can’t say you will rest him. "You need to declare him a week ahead. You have to make your call up front," Ludeke explained. "We are honest, we want to be transparent with making calls like that.
"We value players’ health and we will back the system. That’s why you need player depth and talent and quality all around in the players."
With Flip van der Merwe due to be back from injury next week and Grant Hattingh standing in, the only fringe player likely to get a run will be Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg.
Marvin Orie, who chose to stay at the Bulls despite overtures from the Lions, is still languishing in the Vodacom Cup and despite promises of a run in Super Rugby this year, has not been part of the match 23."
All that is clear from the above is that the rumours starting to circulate earlier this week about Matfield having a knee injury has been confirmed. How serious the injury is will only be confirmed after full medical report by a specialist has been completed.
There is however a huge difference between the Du Toit and Matfield cases. Du Toit was stringing together top class performance after top-class performance in the matches he played in. Matfield was not doing the same and he was in the main coasting doing nothing in Tight 5 play - was taking minimal line outs - and was making strings of weak tackles as his only claim to fame.
Another difference is that Du Toit is desperate to get back asap. The question is - is Matfield equally desperate to play? Matfield knows that unless his performances in this series shows serious deficiencies - he is virtually assured of inclusion in the RC and the WC squads because of his friendship with Meyer.
So why bother to even play at all. Participation in the remainder of Super 15 will only serve to expose already substantial deficiencies in Matfield's performances, especially in the critical Tight 5 situation.
