Roos’ return for the Stormers is off the bench

Springbok Evan Roos will be making his highly anticipated return to the DHL Stormers match day squad as a member of the bench in Saturday’s final Heineken Champions Cup pool game against ASM Clermont-Auvergne at DHL Stadium.

Roos has been out of action since he sustained a rib injury playing No 8 for the Boks in their impressive win over England at Twickenham. The Stormers player used the final international match of the year to show he is ready to make the step up, but as he hasn’t played much recently he is not among the Bok players who will be rested in the coming weeks and coach John Dobson will be pleased to have him back.

However, Hacjivah Dayimani has been excellent off the back of the Stormers scrum in Roos’ absence and is probably himself now considered a challenger for Bok honours. So Dobson will be comfortable with keeping the Deon Fourie, Willie Engelbrecht and Dayimani back row configuration together this week, with Roos bringing impetus onto the field when his called into action.

Engelbrecht did not start against London Irish last week, but was in good form before that, particularly in the home series of Vodacom United Rugby Championship derbies over the summer festive week. He comes into the starting side because of the concussion sustained by Junior Pokomela against London Irish.

There were three concussions against London Irish, and they account for the three changes to the side that won 28-14 last time out at the Gtech Community Stadium. The other two changes are both at halfback, where Stefan Ungerer comes in for Paul de Wet and Kade Wolhuter gets a chance to build on the impressive URC game he played against the Scarlets at the end of November.

Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu played as the replacement for the concussed Manie Libbok against Irish but Dobson has opted against starting with him. Instead the highly talented young utility back will cover several bases off the bench, although it is interesting to note that Dobson has returned to a five/three split between forwards and backs after going 6/2 for much of the season.

Jean-Luc du Plessis’ appearance on the bench as the other outside back may be an indication that Dobson is not convinced Feinber-Mngomezulu is quite ready to be the game driver that a flyhalf is expected to be, and at his young age that is understandable. Damian Willemse, a South African Schools flyhalf, went through the same process at the start of his career. Feinberg-Mngomezulu is considered a good option for both fullback and centre at this point of his career but is sure to graduate to flyhalf later on, just as Willemse did with the Boks when Handre Pollard was injured last year.

DHL Stormers team: Damian Willemse, Suleiman Hartzenberg, Ruhan Nel, Dan du Plessis, Angelo Davids, Kade Wolhuter, Stefan Ungerer, Hacjivah Dayimani, Willie Engelbrecht, Deon Fourie, Marvin Orie, Connor Evans, Neethling Fouche, Joseph Dweba, Steven Kitshoff (captain). Replacements: JJ Kotze, Ali Vermaak, Brok Harris, Ben-Jason Dixon, Evan Roos, Herschel Jantjies, Jean-Luc du Plessis, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.