“How I wish it was that easy!” Blikkies remarked.

"We cannot look at the situation in isolation, because we have to identify all factors that contributed to us missing the bus in order to not make the same mistakes in 2011. To treat any illness you first have to know what, and how serious, it is."

Groenewald said Tuks’ unusually long injury list will undoubtedly be taken into consideration as mitigating circumstances for the team not making the play-offs for the first time.

"The fact that we lost 24 of our players over the course of the series due to injuries would limit any team's rhythm and ability. We have used 46 players in our seven matches, a statistic which clearly shows how difficult it was to get any continuity going. In comparison the other competitors were far less disrupted by serious injuries."

Groenewald added that the many injuries unfortunately also exposed Tuks’ lack of enough game breakers to the full.

"We will have to up our standards considerably for the 2011 series so that our players can be mentioned in the same breath as, for example those of Maties and UCT. We may have enough 'good' players, but what we urgently looking for, is to have just as many 'outstanding’ players. In our recruiting and planning for 2011 we will be have to aim much higher than in 2010."