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Otago captain and No 8 Paul Grant may be back before the end of the season, his knee injury not as bad as first thought.
Grant limped badly from the field in the second half of his side’ s loss to Auckland at Eden Park on Saturday night and the injury to his right knee and appeared to be in a lot of pain.
Otago coach Cory Brown said yesterday Grant had hyper-extended his knee and was more comfortable on it yesterday.
There did not appear to be any serious ligament damage.
He may be a chance to play again this season but appears unlikely to front in the match against Counties-Manukau on Saturday at Forsyth Barr Stadium.Grant has a contract with Bath in England straight after the Mitre 10 Cup and he must have feared the worst, immediately after going down.
His replacement is likely to be Naulia Dawai.
Lock Josh Dickson also left the field near the end of the game with an injured foot but Brown said it was just cramp and Dickson should be right.
There are no other injuries from the loss to Auckland and Otago actually received some good news yesterday.
Counties-Manukau halfback, former All Black Augustine Pulu will miss the match on Saturday because of suspension.
New Zealand Rugby ruled yesterday Pulu would be suspended for one week because of a high tackle in his side’s narrow loss to Tasman last Thursday.
His absence is a blow to the Counties-Manukau side, as much of its play centres around the electric halfback.