'It's ridiculous': Why Bok missed Sale's match

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Springbok prop Coenie Oosthuizen's reason for missing the Sale Sharks' starting XV against Sareances last weekend just got a little bit interesting.

The Sale Sharks Twitter account reported that the tighthead prop “had dropped out of [Saturday's] match after picking up an injury in the warm-up”.

However, the social media post didn’t tell the whole story behind his absence.

Sale Sharks head coach Alex Sanderson revealed that the truth was that the 33-year-old Springbok had to endure an unexpected night off because of how he reacted to suffering a bite the previous day from an unidentified insect.

It resulted in a load of pus appearing on his leg and rather than seek out medical help at Sale, Oosthuizen decided to take action himself and it resulted in his game-missing mishap.

Sharks boss Sanderson wasn’t certain whether the prop had syringed himself or used a knife to go at the pus.

Regardless of what implement he used, it left him unable to run on matchday, forcing him to sit it out while Nick Schonert was promoted to start and Joe Jones was hurriedly called up to occupy the bench.

The upside is that Oosthuizen is now mended ahead of next Saturday’s Sale versus Bristol encounter in the  Champions Cup and his disbelieving boss Sanderson can finally laugh at the strange situation that unfolded ahead of the league loss to Saracens.

“He will be over the moon people are interested in his insect bite,” quipped Sanderson about Oosthuizen, who has been at Sale since 2019.

“I don’t know [what type of insect]. It’s just because it has got warm and we have a few bugs in and around the training ground. We have got an equestrian centre next door do and it might be something from that, might be something from the manure.

“He got bitten by an insect on Thursday which got infected.

"The report I got from the doctor on game day was he tried to do something to himself, tried to syringe or maybe took a knife to it to get the pus out himself. In doing so it created more infection and then he couldn’t run the next day and I’m, ‘What are the chances of that?’ At that point there is no point pulling your hair out, you just go, ‘You’ve done it, Nick starts and JJ is on the bench’.

“He is fine now, running around like a spring chicken.

"The antibiotics kicked in but it was just the day before game day and he came into game day and he couldn’t run with it.

"Of all the things that could keep you out, it was an insect bite last week. Ridiculous, isn’t it?

"Doctor’s pulling hair out, but that is the old-school South African mentality, ‘I’ll fix this myself', but he is good to go now.”

By Liam Heagney Rugbypass