Stormers coach Robbie Fleck has bemoaned the injury to tighthead prop Wilco Louw as a blow to their already-depleted front row stocks.
Louw came off in the first five minutes of the Stormers' 26-26 warm-up match with the Bulls on Saturday and Fleck believes it is likely to be a hip flexor injury.
“We’ve just seen him walk out now and look, it is not good news. We think it is a hip flexer,” said Fleck.
“I’d be guessing if I said what the extent of the injury is, but hip flexers are never good news and whether it is a grade 1 or a grade 2, the grade 1 injury normally requires a minimum of four weeks out.
"It’s a soft tissue injury and those can take a while to heal. But let’s just wait until he has seen a specialist, at the moment it doesn’t look good for him when it comes to being ready for our first game.”
That first game is in a fortnight from now against the Jaguares at Newlands. Fleck will be keeping a close eye on the Louw situation as he already has to make do without Frans Malherbe, the other Bok tighthead prop in the Stormers' ranks, who is sidelined until May as he continues his recovery from a long-term injury sustained in the series against France last year.
The Cape side's other tighthead Michael Kumbirai is sidelined with a back injury which meant Sadie, the only remaining tighthead in the squad, played 70 minutes as Louw's replacement on Saturday and did a solid job.
“I think if Wilco has a serious injury we will have to look beyond our region for reinforcements,” said the coach.
"We've got a very young tightead in Carlu (Sadie), who I thought was very good playing his first game at Super Rugby intensity.
"We were only planning on giving him 20 minutes today and he ended up playing 70-odd minutes, so we were very happy with him.
"We've got Neethling Fouche who's playing for Maties (Stellenbosch University) in the Varsity Cup, but we're going to have to look."
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