{"id":30954,"date":"2025-06-06T17:46:38","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T15:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/?p=30954"},"modified":"2025-06-06T17:46:38","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T15:46:38","slug":"sharks-suffer-etzebeth-blow-ahead-of-urc-semi-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/2025\/06\/06\/sharks-suffer-etzebeth-blow-ahead-of-urc-semi-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks suffer Etzebeth blow ahead of URC semi-final\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Sharks will go into Saturday’s United Rugby Championship semi-final against the Bulls at Loftus Versveld without captain, Eben Etzebeth.<\/p>\n

The towering lock suffered a blow during training, which has left him out of the matchday squad.<\/p>\n

He has been replaced by Corne Rahl, who will partner, Emile van Heerden, in the second row.<\/p>\n

Sharks coach, John Plumtree, says losing the back-to-back-to-back Rugby World Cup winner is a huge blow for his side.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe took a knock at training and we decided that it\u2019s best not to risk him this week,\u201d the Sharks boss said after naming his team.<\/p>\n

While Etzebeth missed most of the Sharks\u2019 season with a concussion, Plumtree says he is not overly concerned with the latest head knock.<\/p>\n

“We made a pretty early call. He\u2019s feeling a lot better by the way, he\u2019s been communicating with me and the team. I\u2019m not over-concerned about it but I\u2019m pretty sure that if we go through. He\u2019ll be available next week and what\u2019s the nature of his injury,\u201d adds Plumtree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sharks will go into Saturday’s United Rugby Championship semi-final against the Bulls at Loftus Versveld without captain, Eben Etzebeth. The towering lock suffered a blow during training, which has left him out of the matchday squad. He has been replaced by Corne Rahl, who will partner, Emile van Heerden, ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":30989,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Etz3.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30954"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30990,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30954\/revisions\/30990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yfm.co.za\/devworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}