Injury sidelines Coenie

Prop Coenie Oosthuizen will miss the Springboks' end-of-year tour to Ireland and Britain because of a back injury sustained in the Free State Cheetahs game against Western Province at the weekend.

Oosthuizen, 23, had already missed a large portion of the season due to a neck injury and the latest setback has cast some doubt over his long-term future in a position that requires immense neck and back strength.

"It is a back injury. He's hurt a disc in his back," Cheetahs' doctor Ian Morris told supersport.com.

"We will still get him a specialist opinion, but the initial diagnosis is that he should sit out for between eight and 12 weeks and therefore would miss the end-of-year tour with the Springboks."

No confirmation was given whether the back injury was as a consequence of his neck problems, but it's clear that Oosthuizen has some serious health issues at this fledgling stage of his career.

Coach Naka Drotske defended the Cheetahs' decision to pick Oosthuizen at tighthead even though he has played most of his senior career at loosehead.

Oosthuizen was withdrawn before halftime during Saturday's 36-15 loss to WP.

"He wants to play tighthead and the specialist who operated on his neck feels that his neck takes less strain at tighthead," Drotske said.

"At school he was a tighthead and it was only when he started at senior rugby as a youngster that we moved him to loosehead to ease him into rugby at that level.

"I can't speculate about his long-term health. All I know is that the specialist who operated on his initial neck injury said that he would make a full recovery.

"He's never had problems with his back before, so this is something new."

The Bok squad for the tour has already lost the services of flyhalf Johan Goosen to a knee injury from the team that started the final Four Nations Test against New Zealand two weeks ago.

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