Concern over Bongi Mbonambi's shoulder injury

Springbok hooker Bongi Mbonambi is an injury concern after he left the field during the Sharks' rout of the Bordeaux Begles on Saturday.

The World Cup winner left the field early in the opening half of the Heineken Champions Cup clash, clutching his shoulder. Speaking to the press after the impressive 32-3 bonus point win, Director of Rugby Neil Powell said that more will be revealed by the medical staff on Monday.

"We will have to do an assessment on Monday," said the former Blitzboks coach, as per rugby365.

"I am not a medical doctor, so we do assessments on all the players Monday morning and send them for scans and then make a decision based on that.

"I can only tell you it's a shoulder injury and hopefully he will recover in time for that game against Harlequins."

It's a quick turnaround for the Sharks, who face the Quins in London next weekend, with home-ground advantage in the Heineken Champions Cup knockout rounds up for grabs.

The Durban franchise is also sweating on the fitness of Curwin Bosch, who was pulled out of the matchday squad at the 11th hour. The twice-capped Springbok was replaced by veteran Lionel Cronje, but with fullback Boeta Chamberlain seemingly out for quite some time with a serious shoulder injury, the Sharks can't avoid another injury to a playmaker.

"He picked up a bit of a hammy in the performance session on Thursday," said Powell of Bosch.

"We were hoping that he would pull through in the captain's run on Friday, but unfortunately he didn't, so we didn't really want to risk him.

"The physios are confident that he will be back next weekend, but again it's a case of do we want to risk him or do we want to help him recover fully before we bring him back onto the field.

"The positive is that we will have a bit of time before we depart for London to play the Harlequins, so hopefully we can do a proper assessment of all our injuries before we get onto the plane."