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Powerful South Africa forward Frankie Horne has been ruled out of Commonwealth Games later this year because of injury.

The experienced Horne, who was named South Africa’s Sevens Player of the Year in 2009, broke a bone in his left hand playing for the winning Samurai International side at Saturday’s Middlesex Sevens.

Horne will undergo an operation tomorrow and will be out of action for approximately 12 weeks and miss the high profile multi-sport event which takes place in India’s Delhi on October 11-12.

Samurai gained revenge on 2009 Middlesex winners London Irish in the final, with an all-star international line-up lighting up a rain-soaked Twickenham.

“Frankie played in the Middlesex tournament along with MJ Mentz, Ryno Benjamin, Marius Schoeman and Paul Delport as added sevens specific preparation for the Commonwealth Games,” said Paul Treu, coach of the Springbok Sevens team.

“It’s a massive blow for our preparations for the Commonwealth Games, as Frankie is one of the most experienced members of our team and has been in good form the entire season.” 

Great experience

South Africa scrum-half Delport, who missed the majority of last year’s IRB Sevens World Series campaign, relished an opportunity to gain some pitch time ahead of October. 

He was joined by the likes of Zar Lawrence, Collins Injera, Humphrey Kayange and Pedro Leal in the Samurai side.

“It was fantastic for me to get to play with guys of this calibre and quality ahead of the Commonwealth Games. We don’t have big tournaments like this back home,” Delport told UR7s.

“We were joking in the week that we have to video analyse each other each week (IRB Sevens) so we don’t need to worry as we knew each other’s game on the day!”

Delpot also enjoyed testing his skills against some established England 15-a-side internationals throughout the day.

‘We played against Quins and Danny Care is one of my favourite players as I’m a scrum-half. I’ve played against him before in age-group rugby and then the likes of Armitage brothers who I’ve watched on the Six Nations and against New Zealand. It’s fantastic to measure yourself against those kind of players.

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South Africa’s s team for the Commonwealth Games have been finalised and submitted to the South African Rugby Union (SARU) and the South African Sports Commission and Olympic Committee (Sascoc). The team will be announced by August 25.