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The good news for Springbok fans is that mighty Eben Etzebeth could make his comeback from injury in the Sharks’ United Rugby Championship (URC) match against Zebre next Saturday in Durban, and fellow Boks Aphelele Fassi and Andre Esterhuizen are hard on his heels.

The three key Boks are in Cape Town participating in the Springbok alignment camp as the URC takes a break for the Six Nations finale this week. Etzebeth, in particular, is likely to feature off the bench against Zebre on March 21 and start a week later when big guns Leinster hit the Sharks Tank.

Etzebeth was concussed in the Sharks’ Champions Cup defeat of the Exeter Chiefs on December 7 and hasn’t played since. He trained ahead of the Sharks’ match against Toulouse in early January but withdrew after suffering headaches.

Sharks coach John Plumtree says Etzebeth has been training with the team for some time but wasn’t ready for the return URC match against the Lions last week that landed the Sharks the SA Shield for the first time.

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“I am too scared to tell you anything positive about Eben as every time I have done that before and raised my hopes we have ended up going backwards again,” said Plumtree, with a wry grin.

“But he is training with us and is looking really good. He trained well this week. We have the bye this week, but hopefully he will play for us at the end of the month. As I say, I am nervous about going for any positive timelines but right now it is looking very good.”

Plumtree’s cautious optimism aligns with Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus’ contention last week that Etzebeth will be playing for the Boks sooner rather than later in 2025.

“I drove through to Stellenbosch the other day to meet with Dr Pierre Viviers, the concussion guru, to just get a proper catchup so I could also understand the concussion setup again,” Erasmus said at a press conference in Cape Town.

“When a guy is totally concussion-free, he starts from a clean sheet again and