Coach Robbie Fleck says the Stormers’ injury crisis has disrupted the team during a key part of their campaign, with Eben Etzebeth the latest player to face an injury scare.

To say the Stormers are under an injury cloud is an understatement. Fleck was already without the services of captain Siya Kolisi and senior loose-forward Pieter-Steph du Toit, as well as impressive youngster Kobus van Dyk, going into this weekend’s fixture.

It obviously did not help that second-row pair Etzebeth (hand) and Cobus Wiese (hamstring) were added to the list during the match, which the Lions won 41-22, enabling them to leapfrog both the Stormers and Sharks in the South African conference.

‘It is not just Siya, the injury list is long,’ Fleck commented after the game. ‘There are some big-name players we are missing, [such as] Pieter-Steph, Eben potentially broke his hand, Cobus Wiese did his hamstring. We are really going to have to bring some youngsters through now and see how they go.

‘Obviously, I am disappointed with the loss but we were in it and did well to fight back in the first half. There were just too many disruptions to our team, too many injuries and that affected the way we played.

‘There were too many turnovers which led to some excellent tries for them and also too many missed tackles at the end of the day.’

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