It looks unlikely but the DHL Stormers coaches and players are hoping that Leinster will bring their best team when they come to Cape Town for what for the hosts will be a crucial Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash 10 days for now.
Given the hullaballoo overseas about the Vodacom Bulls’ decision to go understrength to last weekend’s Investec Champions Cup quarterfinal against Northampton Saints at Franklin Gardens, there is plenty of irony in the fact that there have been two years of URC rugby before this one and South Africans have yet to see the perennial league winners’ best team.
It was essentially an academy team that represented the proud Irish province when they lost by a record score to the Bulls at Loftus last year. The Bulls got to experience the vast difference between that team and the full strength Leinster side, which is effectively an Ireland shadow team, when they were outplayed in Dublin on the Easter weekend.
While the Stormers will be benefited in terms of their chances of winning the game if Leinster field an under-strength side against them the Saturday after next, and winning every game is their aim right now due to the tightness of the battle for top four positions on the URC log, experienced centre Dan du Plessis would rather see the visitors field their phalanx of internationals.
“The Champions Cup has seen us play against some really good teams, sides boasting a combined total of 1500 internationals, and that has been great in that it allows ourselves to measure ourselves against the best,” said Du Plessis.
“The La Rochelle game was an incredibly physical game, their centres were big boys. They are a team like Leinster, who are an international level team. Unfortunately we haven’t played against Leinster’s top team yet, but that is something we hope they will bring when they play us in a few weeks time. We want to play and measure ourselves against their best players and their experienced internationals.
It doesn’t look like the Stormers will get their wish, because former Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber, who is now a senior assistant to head coach Leo Cullen at Leinster, is among the coaches that will heading back overseas after Saturday’s game against the Emirates Lions in Johannesburg. The reason for that is the need to prepare the first choice team for the Champions Cup semifinal that will follow seven days after the Cape Town game.
The need to balance their URC and Champions Cup commitments is the reason Leinster have yet to come to South Africa with a full strength squad, and why they have yet to beat the Bulls, Hollywoodbets Sharks or Stormers on South African soil. The Stormers managed to draw with a strong but not quite full strength Leinster side in Dublin last March, so they are in fact unbeaten against Leinster, a fact that is skewed by the fact Leinster tend to come to South Africa at this tie of the year when the sharp end of the Champions Cup season has been reached.
There appears to be a lot of secrecy around the squad that Leinster have sent out, but the chances are that we will see a stronger side play against the Lions than play against the Stormers as if there are top Irish internationals in the country they will most likely head back to Ireland with Nienaber.
With the race for top spot on the log a lot tighter this season than it has been in the previous two editions of the URC, there is more of a need for Leinster to win in South Africa, and their stated aim is to win both games they play here. Leinster are top, which is where they always appear to be, but they only have a five point lead on second placed Glasgow Warriors, who beat them Glasgow in the first game of the season.
But they might take cognisance of the fact that Glasgow still have a game in Pretoria in their future, and Leinster know only too well what a tough venue Loftus is for visiting overseas teams. Leinster do boast more depth than any other squad in the competition, and have been prepared to go understrength in some quite important URC games, including two playoff games against the Bulls in 2021/2022 and Munster in 2022/23 where it backfired on them.
You do get the impression though that if Leinster had to choose between silverware in the respective competitions, they would prioritise the Champions Cup, the elite European competition which they have won four times, with only Toulouse having won more, and where they’ve come up agonisingly short in two successive finals against La Rochelle.
Meanwhile the Stormers are focussing on Saturday's game against the Ospreys at the DHL Stadium, one they desperately need to win before focusing on Leinster, and Du Plessis makes it clear he and his teammates won't be underestimating the challenge posed by the Wales Shield frontrunners.
"Ospreys have been performing well, they've beaten Sale and Ulster, so we can’t go into this game underestimating them," said the Stormers centre.
"We had the week off last week so all the hard work and analysing is still going into the game. From what we have seen the Ospreys have a good kicking game and will bring a lot of physicality as well."