Springbok lock Andries Bekker has definitely returned home from Cardiff because of injury, despite a potential storm brewing in Cape Town over problems in his personal life.
Bekker returned to Cape Town, from Cardiff, on Wednesday – where he was meant to have been part of the South African starting line-up to play Wales in a one-off Test on Saturday.
Rugby365.com has revealed that a foot injury has definitely forced Bekker home – despite rumours of problems in his personal life surfacing this week, prompting some to suggest that he had returned home to deal with these issues.
However, we can confirm that the Bok team management is aware of Bekker’s personal problems – which are set to be revealed in a weekly magazine later this week – but they regard those rumours as a “private matter” altogether.
The Bok management have decided not to get involved in the player’s personal life and have left it up to him and his family to resolve on their own.
Bekker suffered a foot injury when Bulls lock Danie Rossouw fell on him in the Super 14 Final in Soweto last Saturday, while he also had lower back problems this season.
Further to that, rugby365.com also confirmed that Bekker has played with a serious hand injury for the last month and is now likely to miss the rest of South Africa’s June internationals – at least – which could put him in doubt for the 2010 Tri-Nations.
The 26-year-old lock underwent scans for his foot injury before his departure to Cardiff last Sunday and was fitted with a moon boot, to help reduce swelling on the flight over to the United Kingdom.
However, by Tuesday the swelling and bruising had not subsided and the player was still in substantial discomfort – prompting team management to fly over Bulls captain, and Bok veteran, Victor Matfield as his replacement.
Courtesy or Rugby 365.com editor Jan De Koning.
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I was all set to go into a rant about incompetent SARU medical staff are after it was announced on Sat that all players were fit and on their way to Wales with Bekker specifically being mentioned.
Then three or four days later suddenly he is injured and going home????????
So.
Are Saru medial staff incompetent?
Or is he returning home for personal reasons?
Considering that one of the best in the business, our very own Sharks Doctor, Dr. Craig Roberts is at the head of that medical team. I would back option two. 🙁
No player deserves to have his sporting career affected by personal problems.
Sorry to hear about a injury its always bad news 😥 but my hopes are still with the boks make us proud
Bekker with a sore back is like a giraffe with a sore neck or a duisendpoot with sore feet.
What rumours?… think I’m going to put my pride in my pocket and phone Petoors tomorrow to hear how his fitness test is going…
@SandTiger (Comment 4) : hey – if you have his number, why not? 🙂
BTW, it seems as if Andries Bekker has been caught “playing an away game”
@robdylan (Comment 5) : 😯
👿
@robdylan (Comment 5) : You Magazine, the pinnacle of investigative journalism 😐
Suppose y’all read what John Smit had to say in his book about You Magazine when they threatened to gatecrash his wedding, ‘whether he liked it or not’. Sound like a charming bunch…
@CapeShark (Comment 7) : well, if the lad is silly enough to go around kissing people he’s not married to, nogal in public, then he should expect to get nailed.
Idiot.
@robdylan (Comment 9) :
Do you have a link??
@wpw (Comment 10) : http://www.you.co.za
@wpw (Comment 10) :
Was it him on the train wpw ! 😯
Gee that CUP looks good !
…..you won’t see many Kiwi’s with one of those ! 😉
@wpw (Comment 6) : don’t you (oops your wife) read you mag 😈
@Hertford Highlander (Comment 12) :
i see you’re now competition – so you must be picked on … 😈
@rekinek (Comment 13) :
My wife does!! 🙄
(I was reading one of hers last night) 😕 😳
@rekinek (Comment 14) :
Is that why you’re always picking on me?? 😈
@robdylan (Comment 11) :
‘Aletta CombatWombat Strydom’
😯
@wpw (Comment 15) : so you should be well versed in what’s happening on a social scene 😉
@wpw (Comment 16) : but you have no cup (maybe Rob can organise a weber icon for you 😆
@rekinek (Comment 18) :
Yeah I do.
Did you know Francois Hougaard dated Mark Fish’s ex wife??
Louis Fish 🙄
@wpw (Comment 19) : what was her maiden name? She’s the chick that was involved with James Small before he dumped her for Christina Storm…
@wpw (Comment 19) : was also involved briefly with Arno Carstens… spotting a pattern here?
@robdylan (Comment 20) :
Yeah I know.
Not sure but I noticed she hosts a show on Kyknet!! 😆
@Hertford Highlander (Comment 12) :
@wpw (Comment 22) : Loui Visser
@wpw (Comment 19) : you kidding …. i thought she left Mark after discovering that church was her true calling and joined nuns in a secluded convent deep in Himalayas. I didn’t even know she was back in the country 😯
@robdylan (Comment 21) : grewpeeeeee
@robdylan (Comment 24) : she dated Christian Stewart as well…
can you say “trophy hunter”?
@wpw (Comment 22) : was that little chat serious 😯 😆
@rekinek (Comment 28) : with real people’s names
@CapeShark (Comment 7) :
THAt is what i thought last night when I posted this but could find nothing on the You magazines website. Have they just released a new issue?
@wpw (Comment 19) : dude – are you sure about that? She must be about 15 years older than Hougaard…
@provincejoulekkading (Comment 26) :
Apparently Hougaard is also klaar wiff her!! 😕 ❓
@wpw (Comment 32) : COUGARRRRRRRRRR
@rekinek (Comment 28) :
She does yes. Host a show!
@robdylan (Comment 31) :
There were a few pics of the them together!! 😉
Maybe our left wing friend is hung like a …. 😯
And this happened soon after she split from Feeesh!!
@wpw (Comment 34) : I don’t know any of these people (obviously must brush up on my you reading) . I thought you and Rob were just making fun and not openly gossiping on a rugby website 🙄 shall I add like a true You readers 😈
Okay so nobody else has posted it here.
I Will.
From You magazine
Andries Bekker was one of the stars of this year’s Super 14 rugby, the Stormers’ magical lock, at 26 a national hero of the game and known as a gentle giant, a true friend and well-mannered man.
At home he was a loving stalwart to wife Pioni (26), his teenage sweetheart whom he married two years ago. Their lives were a never-ending fairytale . . . then the bombshell.
A rugby supporter recognised Andries immediately when he stopped his red Chevrolet Camaro at a park in Plattekloof, in the northern suburbs of Cape Town. A blue Corsa stopped behind him. He got out. A petite brunette in boots and a short skirt got out of the Corsa and fell into his arms.
The woman witnessing this was frozen in disbelief. Surely not him, her hero. But her eyes hadn’t deceived her. The next day the same scene played out, once again in front of her house.
When she couldn’t stand it any more the woman called YOU to witness what was going on.
The woman in the short skirt has been identified as Alet Strydom (23) of Plattekloof, a fourth-year design student at the Cape University of Technology.
On Facebook Alet calls herself Aletta CombatWombat Strydom, and her favourite quote, she says, is by American punk group Shai Hulud: “Nothing that breathes is above betrayal.”
A classmate says Alet was heard bragging loudly in a class of 40 students about her friendship with the Springbok lock.
When Alet heard about the pictures her response was simply, “That’s weird but I’d rather not say anything.”
Andries and Alet met at the beginning of the year but his wife didn’t at that stage have a reason to suspect anything.
The news has come as a shock to their friends and close-knit families – Pioni’s parents and his – and left them devastated.
His dad, former Springbok lock Hennie Bekker (57), is annoyed with his son and sad.
Pioni’s mom, who wants to be known just as Louise, says a spaceship landing in her garden would have been less of a surprise.
Andries doesn’t intend looking for excuses, Hennie says. “I love my wife very, very much,” he told his dad. “I’m genuinely sorry. It’s the first time ever and I was stupid.
Although things are tough for Pioni at the moment the couple will talk matters over when Andries returns home. Pioni eventually told us she’ll stand by her man because anyone can make a mistake.
I am all for a player having his right to privacy during family troubles and illnesses etc. but my support of that right ends when that player brings heartache upon himself.
Andries Bekker was one of the stars of this year’s Super 14 rugby, the Stormers’ magical lock, at 26 a national hero of the game and known as a gentle giant, a true friend and well-mannered man.
Our old friend Methos would beg to differ.STRONGLY!
@KSA Shark © (Comment 38) :
Come on Oubaas – we all screw up, just to varying degrees.
Yes he was wrong, but ffs, give him the space to pick up the pieces.
No problem with you publishing this though.
@provincejoulekkading (Comment 39) : oh? I must have missed that story…
@robdylan (Comment 41) : Ag its just the gentle giant thing is a farce, the story goes that he an extremely arrogant punk off the field and that he never really treated his “sweetheart” properly before they were married.
Not facts, just what I heard a while back.
@provincejoulekkading (Comment 42) : it’s no game for sissies 🙂
@provincejoulekkading (Comment 42) : Verrry interesting – confirms what my female instinct has warned me about – have never and will never like him, just something about him has always irritated the blazes out of me 🙄
@diablo (VICTORY! sweeter on neutral ground!) (Comment 44) :
Sweet mother of…
Are you a woman??? 😯
@diablo (VICTORY! sweeter on neutral ground!) (Comment 44) :
So your real name isn’t Alet and this isn’t a conspiracy to keep him out of the Bok squad just so Victor can get another cap? 😛 😉
@Big Fish (Comment 45) :
Didn’t you know? HOW ELSE would a Bulls fan have an intelligent conversation with us?
@Big Fish (Comment 45) : Yep, at least last time I looked 😉
@KSA Shark © (Comment 46) : 👿 Nah, Victor Victorious needs a wee bit of R&R, imo 😉
@KSA Shark © (Comment 47) : 😡
@diablo (VICTORY! sweeter on neutral ground!) (Comment 48) :
So MANY different emotions in one post. Anyone who wasn’t sure you are a woman must be 100% certain now. 😛
@KSA Shark © (Comment 49) : I may not post often, but I am “colourful” when I do! 😀
@KSA Shark © (Comment 49) :
hahahahaha 😈 😆
Man alive, I would never have guessed.
Not that you are not feminine (I just put that down to a Camp David vibe), but the name is rather masculine.
nog een?
Shucks, do we actually have any blokes here at all?
@wpw (Comment 51) :
What about you?
I’m pretty sure you are an overweight housewife.
@Big Fish (Comment 54) :
@Big Fish (Comment 52) : A rose by any other name…. ❓ Chose the name ’cause I admire the cars, and “Fierce Bull” seemed like an apt nick for a very fierce Bull
I do, however, rather choose to ignore the “other” meaning of my nick 👿
@robdylan (Comment 53) : don’t tell me you and the others never knew Diablo is a very pretty women oh my the women in the SW are going to take over very soon 😳 😉
@robdylan (Comment 53) : how many are we if i may ask 😳 in SW women now please 🙂
@chaz (Comment 57) : We’ll sommer rename the site to Chicksworld
@diablo (VICTORY! sweeter on neutral ground!) (Comment 59) : 🙄 you want ROB to band us out just out 😕 now way its better as SW
much more fun shame we can’t leave our friendly guys all alone 🙁 😉
Chaz – at least half of the regular commentators are women!
@robdylan (Comment 61) : thats great go girls go