At this stage their still no indication when the teams may start training again or playing but for the Cheetahs, they will hope it is in time to complete their Guinness PRO14 commitments.

With the spike in Covid-19 infections across South Africa, it will seem unlikely that the Cheetahs will be able to play in their home-and-away fixture against the Southern Kings in order to make the PRO14 play-offs.

It would appear that the Currie Cup will be contested over a double-round this session, but because of time issues, there will be no bye weeks, and the final will be contested on 12 December.

The coach of the defending Currie Cup champions, Fourie, told OFM Sport they have had a long enough break, so player burnout is not a concern, however, with a grueling schedule, injuries are more likely to be an issue for the Central franchise.

“I won’t say player burnout will be a problem. The guys haven’t played for serval months now – I think the last game was at the end of February. There won’t be any burnout, but the conditioning is a bit of a concern.

“If we play a double-round Currie Cup with a semi-final and final up until the 12th of December, then that will mean that we will play 16 games in 16 weeks and the will mean that there won’t be any byes.

“It doesn’t make sense to me to do that with players that haven’t played for five or six months and with limited contract training.

“I think it will mean that we will only have two or three weeks of contract training if it starts on the 29th of August.

“So I am a bit more worried about injuries as opposed to player burnout.”

Due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, there has been no domestic rugby in South Africa since March.

@MorganPiek OFM Sport