Bulls lose Greyling and Ndungane for opening round

The Bulls will play their Super Rugby season opening match at Loftus Versfeld against the Stormers without at least three of their first choice players.

Springbok props Dean Greyling and Marcel van der Merwe and World Cup winning winger Akona Ndungane have all be ruled out for the Stormers clash due to injury,

The Bulls play local South African rivals the Stormers but 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.

However 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 today.

Flip van der Merwe (pectoral, mid-April), Bandise Maku (pectoral, 4-6 months) and Pierre Schoeman (ACL, 15 July) remain on the long-term injury list.