Ireland international backline players Bundee Aki and Mack Hansen were both singled out by DHL Stormers defence coach Norman Laker as massive threats to his team in Saturday’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash at DHL Stadium but as it turns out he was wasting words.
Connacht are experiencing something of an injury crisis currently and apart from several players who are in doubt for Saturday’s replay of the 2022/2023 URC semifinal at the same venue and involved in a race against time to be ready, the two backline kingpins have stayed in Ireland and have already been ruled out of the game.
That is a significant blow for the visitors, who are 13th on the log, three places behind the Stormers, and also six points off the top eight position that will enable them to emulate their achievement of two seasons ago by making the last four and going deep in the Finals Series.
The players that coach Pete Wilkins is waiting on, in the hope they may be able to play, are loose-forward Shamus Hurley-Langton, who is struggling with a wrist injury picked up against Racing 92 in last weekend’s bruising EPCR Challenge Cup quarterfinal loss to Racing 92, and Flyhalf Josh Ioane (hand).
Further injuries sustained against Racing 92 include Denis Buckley (quad) and Finn Treacy (head), with both already ruled out of the Cape Town game.
However, an area where the visitors don’t appear to have been impacted by injury is in their lineout resources, an area where Connacht have been consistently good. Stormers lock Ruben van Heerden is looking forward to the lineout challenge on what will be the occasion of his 50th game for the Cape franchise.
“Connacht has a great lineout, I think they’ve been maybe in the top three lineouts in the last three years,” said Van Heerden, who played several seasons for the Sharks in Durban before arriving at the Stormers halfway through the 2022/2023 season via a short stint with the Exeter Chiefs.
“I think if you look at the URC statistics at this stage, they’ve got the No 1 lineout in the competition. But we are on their heels at No 2. There’s this silly narrative, I don’t know why, that our lineouts are inconsistent, but statistically, we’ve got the second-best lineout in the competition. We’re looking forward to the challenge.
“We know Connacht have an efficient lineout. We’re just going to stick to our guns and try to do what we can do to the best of our abilities. Much respect to Connacht, because they do a lot of things well, but so do we. It’s going to be a good battle.”