The DHL Stormers will again be without key loose-forwards Evan Roos and Marcel Theunissen when they tackle Edinburgh in their second Vodacom URC match on Friday night, but that shouldn’t cause supporters of the team the sort of consternation it may have in the past.
The pair withdrew at the 11th hour because of injuries that were thought to be the result of training on the unfamiliar and unyielding 4G surface ahead of the game against Connacht in Galway, and are already back in Cape Town, having the extent of those injuries assessed. Forwards coach Rito Hlungwani was unable to put a time scale on their absence from the playing field.
“They are back in Cape Town undergoing scans as we speak and we will know more about when they will be back once that has been done,” said Hlungwani from the team base in Galway, where they have stayed to train ahead of a scheduled Tuesday departure for Edinburgh.
With the likes of Ruan Ackermann, who recently had his elbow cleaned out, and Keke Morabe also out injured at the moment, it has left the Stormers looking a little bit short, particularly as current Springbok loose-forwards Deon Fourie and Paul de Villiers are only due to join up with the team again once the squad has returned home next week to begin preparations for the Sharks game.
However, Bok captain Siya Kolisi was at the Galway game as a spectator and even warmed up with the team and attended meetings.
According to Stormers director of rugby John Dobson, he was eager to play even though he only arrived in Galway the night before the game, which the Stormers won 29-15 and banked a full house of five log points in the process.
'EXTRAORDINARY PERFORMANCE'
Also watching from the sidelines was another current Bok in Ben-Jason Dixon, who the national team could have done with in Sunday’s game in Perth had he been available. Dixon has been out for a while trying to overcome concussion protocols, but Hlungwani, although trotting out the usual line that the team announcement will only be made on Thursday, did confirm he has been training with the team.
Not that it would be such a major setback were he not available, given the way that recent Junior Bok captain Riley Norton, who led the national age-group team to victory in last year’s Junior World Cup but was unavailable for the most recent one because he was first selected to the senior Bok squad and then injured, played in his debut.
Normally a lock, Norton found himself moved to blindside flank, with Louw Nel, who is also inexperienced at senior level, being switched across to the openside flank shortly before the game as that was where Roos was expected to play.
“Considering the disruptions this week, it was an extraordinary performance,” said Dobson after the four-try-to-two triumph.
“We had to reshuffle a lot, we had 10 loose-forwards unavailable (to a combination of injury and Springbok duty) and I thought Louw, Hacjivah (Dayimani) and Riley Norton were superb.”
Indeed, the new wave of players coming through in South Africa and who used the first round of the URC to champion future potential was very much in evidence in the Stormers' performance.
“If you think about the players around 20 who made good contributions, it was very positive for us to win on a ground where we know Connacht are going to knock over a lot of very good teams during the season,” said the Stormers director of rugby.
“He is just 19, but Yaqeen (flyhalf Yaqeen Ahmed) was superb when he came on as a replacement, and so was Olly Reid (Junior Bok loosehead prop). Riley was also very impressive, so it was a really good day at the office.”
And what was good about it was the adaptability shown by the Stormers.
“We had planned to change the two locks and the two props after 45 minutes, but the lack of loose-forward cover made it difficult.”
What the Stormers did struggle to do was convert their territorial and possession ascendancy, so it was unsurprising to hear Hlungwani speak about the conversion rate as a big work-on in the buildup to the Edinburgh game.
“We felt we got into their 22 very efficiently and we didn’t really get the points to show for it so we definitely have to improve our conversion rate,” said the Stormers forwards coach. “We were happy with the way we defended and dealt with their kicking game and their maul, so it is probably just our conversion rate we should be really concerned about.”