Still sidelined: Eben Etzebeth to also miss Challenge Cup knockout

Challenge Cup champions, the Sharks, will have to play this season’s round of 16 game against Lyon next weekend without the help of double World Cup winner Eben Etzebeth.

The 33-year-old nominee for both World and SA Player of the Year for 2024 suffered a concussion against Exeter Chiefs in the Champions Cup on 7 December.

He failed concussion tests over the following three months but more recently was tipped by Bok coach Rassie Erasmus and Sharks head coach John Plumtree to return by the end of March.

However, Etzebeth strained his hamstring during a running session at the Springbok alignment camp in Cape Town about halfway through the month.

In the latest update, Sharks head coach JohnPlumtree told media on Thursday that South Africa’s most-capped player of all time (131 Tests) would be out for a further two weeks at least. But hopefully, he would be back in three weeks.

Challenge Cup all-important to Sharks

The Sharks play Leinster in the United Rugby Championship (URC) on Saturday, where they could have used the powerful lock.

But next weekend they will play in a fixture that is perhaps even more important: a knockout in the European tournament they won last year – the Challenge Cup.

The Sharks will compete away at French outfit Lyon Olympique Universitaire on Sunday 6 April. The quarter-finals will be held between 11 and 13 April—three weeks away and about when Plumtree is hoping Etzebeth will return.

This is a tournament the Durban side are especially eager to win after their terrible Champions Cup campaign that saw them win one game out of four and accumulate a discouraging points difference of -87 in just those four games.

Finishing fifth in their pool meant they dropped into the lower-tier Challenge cup.

If the Sharks do not kick on into the final rounds of the Challenge Cup and URC, their first-ever URC South African shield will mean little, its silverware easily forgotten.