Stormers and Springbok captain Siya Kolisi says his initial fear was that he may have torn his hamstring in Friday’s clash with the Pumas.
Besides a sub-standard performance against the gutsy Pumas at the Mbombela Stadium, a real concern for the Stormers and supporters would have been the sight of Kolisi limping from the field in the first half.
After being cleaned out in a ruck, it looked as if Kolisi’s left leg was caught in an awkward position, and in the immediate post-match interview he admitted it didn’t feel good.
‘My leg is not too good, I think I might have torn my hamstring a little bit, but we will have to check afterwards,’ he commented.
Kolisi and the Stormers will now await the result of a scan, and hope the injury is not as bad as first feared.
Turning his attention to the comeback win over the Pumas, Kolisi praised the fighting spirit of the Stormers.
‘It’s tough, I can’t take anything away from the Pumas, they played really well and their flyhalf put us under a lot of pressure and we took too long to adapt. Things didn’t go our way in the first half, but I’d like to congratulate the bench for the impact they made when they came on. So, I’m really proud of the boys for the way they fought back.
‘We had nothing else [we could do] but to throw everything at them, but I think we still played the kicking game better in the second half, because they kicked really well in the first half. We kept believing all the way to the end, and I’m really proud of them. It was really tough in the changing room, but we knew what we had to do.’
The Stormers will next face the Vodacom Bulls, and Kolisi said there would be no option but to start much better than they did on Friday.
‘If this is what we do against the Bulls it will be really hard to come back like we did today. So we need to make sure from the beginning they know what we’re here to do … and hopefully we can take the way we played in the last bit of this game into the Bulls match.’
