Cape Town - There was very little for the Sharks to be upset about following their crushing 53-0 win over the Kings on Saturday, but the fitness of loose forward Dan du Preez will be a concern.
The bulky No 8 was forced to leave the field after just 9 minutes with a groin injury and coach Gary Gold was not overly optimistic after the match.
The one shining light for the Sharks is that they have a bye next week and will only be in Super Rugby action again on July 2 following the international break.
"Unfortunately Dan looks like he’s torn his groin," said Gold.
"It doesn’t look like a fantastic tear. We do have six weeks to look after him and get him better but we just hope that when he comes back from the scan that it’s not as bad as what we anticipate, which is maybe needing an operation."
The word from the Sharks camp on Monday was that, at this stage, it appeared that Du Preez would not need surgery, but nothing could be confirmed.
Du Preez's injury opened the door for Tera Mtembu, who made his second appearance off the bench in two weeks after having missed the whole season through injury of his own.
Gold was pleased with what he saw.
"It was fantastic to see Tera get a run," said Gold.
"He’s worked so hard. He had terrible luck last year with one injury after another so this is his second or third week involved again now and I thought he played really nicely when he came on."