Player Movements
Chiefs hooker Hika Elliot has been training with his team-mates but a decision on his short and long term playing future will have to be made.
The Super Rugby winning hooker has a serious neck injury which could force him into retiring from playing rugby altogether.
Springbok fullback Willie le Roux will be rested from the Cheetahs’ two warm-up matches in Port Elizabeth this week, according to reports.
Le Roux fell on his shoulder during the Cheetahs’ warm-up game against Shimlas last week. He is not badly injured but won’t be risked for games against NMMU (Tuesday) and the EP Kings (Saturday).
Carel Greeff is the latest Varsity Cup product looking to leave his mark in Super Rugby.
Greeff, who played loose forward for Wits University last year, is the big bolter in a 36-man Cheetahs squad that will head to Jeffreys Bay on Monday for a week-long training camp.
Jackson Willison is the latest player to ink a lucrative contract with an overseas club, signing a two-year deal with Top 14 French outfit Grenoble.
Auckland player Akira Ioane has had to withdraw from the team for the Las Vegas Sevens tournament and has been replaced by Manawatu’s George Tilsley.
Edinburgh Rugby forwards Ross Rennie and Stuart McInally will join former Scotland head coach Andy Robinson on loan to Bristol Rugby to the end of the season.
New Zealand will be without the services of star playmaker Tomasi Cama when they take part in the fourth leg of the IRB Sevens World Series in Las Vegas.
Cama suffered a calf injury in training and will not depart with the team on Sunday – ahead of the Vegas tournament on 25 January and 26.
The Cell C Sharks have named their squad to face Saracens on Saturday 25 January 2014, when they will play in a pre-season friendly at Allianz Park in London.
It will be the first time in a game situation that Jake White will be in charge of the Cell C Sharks and this game is one of 2 scheduled warm-up matches for the Sharks, in preparation of the 2014 Super Rugby season.
The squad is minus a few players, notably with Patrick Lambie, JP Pietersen, SP Marais and a couple of locks not going on tour.
Cheslin Kolbe’s Super Rugby debut has been pushed back after the rising star suffered a serious knee injury during a Stormers training session on Tuesday.
The 20-year-old suffered a torn lateral meniscus in what coach Allister Coetzee described as a “freak accident” and requires surgery that will sideline him for at least eight weeks.
Springbok and Stormers wing Gio Aplon’s preferred destination, if he leaves South African rugby, will be Japan, and not France, as earlier reports had indicated.
Western Province Rugby chief executive Rob Wagner has moved to dismiss reports that Aplon had signed a contract with French team Grenoble.
Uncapped 23-year-old Edinburgh wing Dougie Fife was named in a senior Scotland squad for the first time – ahead of the Six Nations next month.
Fife, a product of Edinburgh’s development system and also nurtured by the Currie club, has been in prolific form for the capital pro-club, scoring five tries in his last seven outings.
Springbok and Stormers winger Gio Aplon is set to become the next high-profile South African to head to France after it was revealed he was “close to signing” a contract with French club Grenoble.
After seven lean years, in which their highest finish was 10th, the Cheetahs finally made the 2013 Super Rugby play-offs. Now they are ready to raise the bar once more.
Cheetahs assistant coach Hawies Fourie is confident they have the squad to improve on last year’s sixth-place finish – when they were knocked out in the quarterfinal stage by the Brumbies.
Back to back Super Rugby champions the Chiefs have signed up Hawke’s Bay flyhalf Ihaia West as injury cover ahead of the Super Rugby season.
Blues’ high-profile Rugby League recruit Benji Marshall will take time to convert to Rugby Union.
This is the view of New Zealand’s World Cup-winning former All Black coach Graham Henry, who is also assisting John Kirwan at the Blues.
The oldest man to wear a Springbok jersey in the modern era, Johan Ackermann, has given Victor Matfield’s comeback his seal of approval.
The Lions will field a much younger and very inexperienced squad in 2014, compared to their last appearance in Super Rugby in 2012.
However, coach Johan Ackermann said he would lean heavily on a handful of his most senior players – the old hands left over from two years ago – when they start their campaign next month.
The Blues have withdrawn Culum Retallick from their squad for the upcoming Super Rugby season.
The veteran lock was expected to miss the majority if not all of the season after rupturing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee.
Former Springbok lock Victor Matfield will make his return to the playing field for the Bulls in this year’s Super Rugby competition, a report indicates.
Die Burger newspaper was reliably informed by three credible sources that Matfield will play for the Bulls.
DHL Stormers head coach Allister Coetzee has named a 38-man squad for next week’s pre-season camp in Hermanus.
The DHL Stormers will head to Hermanus for the fourth year in a row as they prepare for the 2014 Vodacom Super Rugby season which gets underway in just over a month.
Springboks Tiaan Liebenberg, Frans Malherbe, Pat Cilliers, Siya Kolisi, Schalk Burger, Duane Vermeulen, Jean de Villiers, Jaco Taute, Juan de Jongh and Gio Aplon are all part of the 38-man group, which also includes new signing Manuel Carizza (lock) and utility back Scott van Breda, who is on loan from the Kings.
Wallabies and Waratahs No 8 Wycliff Palu has declared himself fit and ready for a big Super Rugby season in 2014 having recovered from surgery.
Thirty-one-year-old Palu went under the knife to repair torn cartilage in his right knee and has not played rugby since the Wallabies third Test against the British and Irish Lions.
Morgan Parra will make a surprise return to action against Harlequins in the European Cup on Saturday, his Clermont head coach Vern Cotter said on Thursday.
Versatile back Mirco Bergamasco was named in Italy’s pre-Six Nations 30-man squad by coach Jacques Brunel Thursday, for the first time in more than a year.
The 30-year-old has not played for Italy since November 2012 when he broke his knee against Australia in Florence.
Australia’s Western Force on Thursday announced the signing of Sharks back-rower Brynard Stander, the eighth South African on their books, as they strengthened their squad ahead of this year’s Super Rugby season.
Luke Watson looks set to stay at the Kings despite interest shown in him by Sharks coach Jake White.
White shocked the rugby fraternity when he phoned Watson last month over the possibility of him representing the Sharks in this year’s Super Rugby competition.
Australia captain Ben Mowen is to quit the country at the end of 2014 and play in Europe, ending his hopes of representing the Wallabies at the 2015 World Cup.
Clermont received fresh injury concerns on Tuesday ahead of Saturday’s crunch European Cup clash with Harlequins as New Zealand centre Regan King and France No.8 Damien Chouly were both ruled out.
Springboks Adriaan Strauss, Willie le Roux, Coenie Oosthuizen and Johan Goosen have returned to training ahead of the Super Rugby season.
The Lions are back in training following a break over the festive period as they prepare for the upcoming Super Rugby season.
Pat McCabe may have fractured his neck twice in 14 months, but he is not about to tone down his abrasive style.
The Brumbies’ Wallaby centre, McCabe, missed the second half of 2013 after he injuring his neck in the first Test against the British and Irish Lions in June last year. The 25-year-old first broke his neck on the Wallabies’ year-end tour of Europe in 2012.
Towering lock Adam Coleman is determined to make a name for himself and play a dominant enforcer role for the Western Force in the 2014 Super Rugby season.
A tight forward with a first-class sporting pedigree hailing from one of Australian rugby’s relative backwaters, Hobart-born Coleman has aspired to play elite rugby since taking up the sport at the age of 13.
France scrumhalf Morgan Parra is set to miss the Six Nations opener against England after being ruled out for 10 to 12 weeks with a knee injury, his Top 14 club Clermont said.
Stade Francais saw their surging Top 14 form rewarded when a trio of uncapped players were on Monday called up for France’s Six Nations squad, notably fly-half Jules Plisson ahead of the experienced Francois Trinh-Duc and Frederic Michalak.
Japanese utility back Harumichi Tatekawa is set to become the third player from his country to compete in Super Rugby after signing for the Canberra-based Brumbies, according to media reports on Sunday.
Wallaby James O’Connor is hot property in Europe at the moment, but it has been confirmed he will return home to Australia next January.
O’Connor went into a self-imposed exile last year after being dumped from the Wallaby squad by coach Ewen McKenzie and had his contract torn up by the Australian Rugby Union over his ongoing alcohol-related transgressions.