Petersen sustained a medial collateral ligament (MCL) injury during the Cheetahs 28-25 defeat to the Lions on Saturday and will face four to six weeks out.

The player told OFM Sport that it’s not ideal to sustain an injury so early in the season, but there is still a lot of rugby left in the campaign.

“It’s obviously not nice being injured but luckily it’s still very early in the campaign,” said the star winger.

“It’s a long campaign and there are still a lot of games. Hopefully I can perform at the same level when I get back onto the field.

While the three centres Francois Venter, William Small-Smith and Michael van der Spuy are also sidelined Petersen added that the squad’s depth isn’t an issue at the moment.

“It gives other guys and opportunity to show the coaches what they have.

“William, Michael and Francois are all good players and we’re just hoping that they can get back onto the field as soon as possible.

“It’s quite a big squad we have here with forty-odd players, so at the moment I don’t think that depth will be such a big issue.

“Hopefully everybody recovers and get back onto the field as soon as possible.

It’s is expected that the Springbok Sevens star, Rayno Benjamin, will be named in the starting XV on Thursday when Franco Smith names his team.

The Cheetahs tackle the Bulls on Saturday evening at the Toyota Stadium with kick-off at 19:30.

Morgan Piek/OFM Sport