Nienaber provides Koch injury update after late withdrawal

In a week where South Africa have already lost hooker Malcolm Marx to a World Cup ending injury, they are now left to sweat over the fitness of yet another front-rower after tighthead Vincent Koch pulled out of the match against Romania at the eleventh hour on Sunday in Bordeaux.

Koch was replaced by Trevor Nyakane, who started in the No18 jersey that he was initially scheduled to wear, while Frans Malherbe was drafted in to take his place on the bench. The world champions cruised to a 76-0 win despite this early setback.

Head coach Jacques Nienaber provided an update on the injury after the match, but even he was unable to give concrete information with regards to the injury.
“Vincent hobbled in the warm-up,” he said. “I think its his knee. I don’t have an idea how bad it is, but the doctor will go through it and we’ll have a better understanding maybe tonight.”

After Handre Pollard was called into the Springboks squad to replace Marx, Nienaber’s side are now threadbare in the No2 department with flankers Deon Fourie and Marco van Staden serving as his understudies. A long term injury to Koch may open the door for some more positional gymnastics in the squad, with a hooker being called up in his stead, presumably Joseph Dweba.

The Springboks will want clarity on the injury as soon as possible given the week that lies ahead for them, as an encounter with world number ones Ireland waits for them in Paris on Saturday.

Looking ahead to that match, Nienaber said: “It will be a good game to see who finishes one and two in the pool, but there’s still games to play, so I don’t want to get too far ahead. If it’s Italy, if it’s France, New Zealand, it’s going to be a tough quarter-final, it doesn’t matter who we play.

“From a selection point of view, we’re open and honest with the players, they know what we’re thinking and we’ll share that with them even tonight. We have an idea in our minds what we want to do for the next game. It’s nice that there’s such good internal competition within this group and positive competition. There’s not a big gap between the players.”