Steve Meyer has quit rugby for personal reasons.

Bizarre but true.

Meyer had been signed to fill a massive hole in the Sharks line-up after the injury to Juan Martin Hernandez. After just one warm-up match, he will no longer play for the Sharks.

According to close sources, Meyer and his father went to see Sharks CEO Brian van Zyl and told him Meyer did not want to continue his rugby career for personal reasons.

No one saw this coming, so I’m not sure what is is about. Would this have happened if Meyer was still playing for Perpignan, where he was quite happy for the last few seasons?

At 25 years of age, it seems a premature decision to pull the plug on a professional rugby career.

As the starting flyhalf named for Friday’s game against the Chiefs, the Sharks find themselves in disarray and now need to fall back on Monty Dumond, who has not impressed this season so far, and who really is not Super 14 game-breaking material.

I wrote in my Sharks Super 14 preview and round 1 preview, that  last season the wheels fell off mid-season, but that this year I anticipate they’ll fall off much earlier.

With Johan Muller leaving overseas at the end of the Super 14, Albert van den Berg moving to Japan and now Meyer retiring, things do not look good for the Sharks. Add in the sage with Willem Alberts and Louis Ludik, and Sharks fans must be tearing their hair out and the season has not even begun!

I wish Steve Meyer all the best in whatever he does, I am sure this is not a decision he has made lightly. All the best to the Sharks also, they are going to need it! But I fear luck is not going to save this season!