Giteau cleared for South Africa tour - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Giteau cleared for South Africa tour

16/02/2010 08:52:06 PM Comments (0)

Star Wallabies five-eighth Matt Giteau will take part in the Brumbies' two-match Super 14 tour to South Africa despite suffering an injury scare at training.

Giteau, who missed the Brumbies' season-opening win over the Force with a torn quad, appeared to suffer a re-occurrence of the injury while training in Perth on Monday night and limped off the track.

But an MRI on Tuesday cleared the 27-year-old of any damage and coach Andy Friend was confident his star charge would take to the field against the Bulls in Pretoria on Saturday and the following week's match against the Stormers.

"He'll make the trip and there's still the expectation he'll play in the first game," Friend told AAP.

"He's never torn a muscle before and when you've torn a muscle and you're trying to come back sometimes you are a bit more cautious than you need to be.

"But he did feel a bit of a pain there last night.

"Precautionary we took him out and started to ice the area and he went and had a scan today to confirm there was no further damage done to the quad, which there wasn't, so all good and we'll just play on as though it's fine.

"We will have a training run on Thursday and a captain's run on Friday, so he'll have to get through both of those training sessions without any pain in that quad and if that's the case it's all systems go.

"If he does feel some more pain then we'll re-assess that and make a decision."

Friend said Wallabies flanker Rocky Elsom, who also missed the win over the Force with a hamstring complaint, was a strong chance to take on the Bulls.

"Rocky trained well last night, felt the best he's been since he's been over here," Friend said.

"If all things are equal he'll feature very heavily in our selection thoughts.

"We just need to have a look at how he pulls up and where he's at mentally and physically when he's over there.

"He's a world class player and you want those sorts of blokes on the field."

However, Friend said Tuesday night's flight over to South Africa would go a long way to determining Elsom's availability.

"It's the sitting down for Rocky that can do that to the back and hamstring," Friend said.

"Given we've got a flight coming up it's the reason for the concern."

The Brumbies did just enough to get over the Force in round one but will need to display an improved performance in order to topple the all-conquering Bulls.

"The reigning champions on their home turf, they're a formidable unit and have been for a few years so it's going to be a big task," Friend said.

"Hopefully we can cause an upset."

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