Pretoria - The Bulls will be without Springbok props Dean Greyling and Marcel van der Merwe and World Cup winning winger Akona Ndungane for the opening weekend of the Super Rugby competition.
The Bulls host the Stormers at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday night, but the Bulls website reports that Ndungane (calf, one week), Greyling (foot, two weeks) and Van der Merwe (hamstring, three weeks) will not be part of the action.
To complicate matters a bit more for Bulls coach Frans Ludeke, winger Travis Ismaiel has been ruled out for selection due to a hamstring strain and prop Hencus van Wyk (foot) will only return to training at the end of the month.
All of Basil Short (pectoral), Jason Jenkins (quad), Trevor Nyakane (contusion), Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg (hamstring), Deon Stegmann (hip) and Jesse Kriel (neck) completed a full training session on Monday.
Flip van der Merwe is due to make a full recovery from his pectoral injury in April, while Bandise Maku is expected to be out for another four to six months with a similar injury.
Meanwhile, Pierre Schoeman also remains on the long-term injury list and is expected back in July while he recovers from an ACL injury.
The Bulls host the Stormers at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday night, but the Bulls website reports that Ndungane (calf, one week), Greyling (foot, two weeks) and Van der Merwe (hamstring, three weeks) will not be part of the action.
To complicate matters a bit more for Bulls coach Frans Ludeke, winger Travis Ismaiel has been ruled out for selection due to a hamstring strain and prop Hencus van Wyk (foot) will only return to training at the end of the month.
All of Basil Short (pectoral), Jason Jenkins (quad), Trevor Nyakane (contusion), Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg (hamstring), Deon Stegmann (hip) and Jesse Kriel (neck) completed a full training session on Monday.
Flip van der Merwe is due to make a full recovery from his pectoral injury in April, while Bandise Maku is expected to be out for another four to six months with a similar injury.
Meanwhile, Pierre Schoeman also remains on the long-term injury list and is expected back in July while he recovers from an ACL injury.