{"id":94057,"date":"2026-04-21T17:38:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=94057"},"modified":"2026-04-21T17:38:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:38:35","slug":"sithole-replaces-injured-mnebelele-in-junior-bok-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=94057","title":{"rendered":"Sithole replaces injured Mnebelele in Junior Bok squad"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_94059\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-94059\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-94059\" src=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/junior-springboks-u20-400x225.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-94059\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: SA Rugby<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Junior Boks made an injury-forced change to their squad for the 2026 Under-20 Rugby Championship, with Siphosethu Mnebelele (hooker) replaced by Mahle Sithole for the tournament, which kicks off at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Gqeberha on Monday, 27 April.<\/p>\n<p>Mnebelele, a member of the 2025 Junior World Championship-winning squad, sustained an ankle injury late last week in Stellenbosch.<\/p>\n<p>Sithole, a regular member of recent SA U20 training squads, represented the SA U18s in 2024 and toured Europe with the SA U19s late last year.<\/p>\n<p>Junior Bok head coach Kevin Foote said: \u201cInjuries are unfortunately part of the game, and we want to wish Esethu well with his recovery. He is one of our leaders in the group and has a lot of experience of the Junior Bok set-up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, his injury now given Mahle a great chance to showcase his abilities, and I am sure he is excited about his call up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The squad arrived in Gqeberha on Sunday evening and will spend the week sharpening their preparations for next Monday\u2019s highly anticipated opening clash with Argentina.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe people of the Friendly City are passionate rugby supporters, and we are looking forward to connecting with them during our stay here in Gqeberha,\u201d said Foote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are all excited to be here and are looking forward to the week\u2019s training and our participation against the best teams in the southern hemisphere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tickets for the three double-header match days, to be played on 27 April, 3 and 9 May, are available at only R35 \u2013 <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/springboks.tmtickets.co.za\/\">CLICK HERE<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Issued by SA Rugby Communications<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Junior Boks made an injury-forced change to their squad for the 2026 Under-20 Rugby Championship, with Siphosethu Mnebelele (hooker) replaced by Mahle Sithole for the tournament, which kicks off at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Gqeberha on Monday, 27 April. Mnebelele, a member of the 2025 Junior World Championship-winning squad, sustained an ankle [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":94059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/94059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}