DHL Stormers head coach John Dobson is in the happy position of having a close to full squad to choose from as his team prepares to start the playoff phase of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship with their quarterfinal against Edinburgh on Saturday.
Although Dobson admits that just making the playoffs and qualifying for next season’s European Champions Cup was the initial goal for his team, as the season has progressed and his team has picked up a winning habit, so the goalposts have changed.
So while he will probably still be missing experienced hooker Scarra Ntubeni and back-up scrumhalf Paul de Wet, Dobson will see the benefit of having everyone fit going into what he hopes will be a phase of three matches.
The team he names on Thursday is likely to be similar to the one that beat Scarlets last time out, although there could be some regular match day squad choices returning after Dobson gave some of the fringe players some exposure to URC rugby in the final league game.
“We have a clean bill of health at the moment, meaning that there were no injuries picked up in our last game, which is a good return considering the nature of our game against the Scarlets,” said Dobson.
The Stormers coach confirmed that both scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies and centre Rikus Pretorius are back in training and available for selection for Saturday’s game.
The former is likely to start in the No 9 jersey after Stefan Ungerer, who was on loan for just that one match from Windhoek Draught Griquas, stood in and did a good job in the match in Llanelli a week and a half ago.
Pretorius was in good form when he played during the league phase of competition but has been out after suffering concussion against Glasgow Warriors in late April.
While he is certainly good enough to do a job for the Stormers, and could be a crucial player next year if Warrick Gelant goes to France, Dobson won’t be tampering with his current mix of having Damian Willemse at inside centre and Gelant at fullback.
Also back in the mix challenging for a match day squad place this week will be Adre Smith, who missed out on the trip to Scarlets but has been good in his first season for the Stormers, while Junior Pokomela also wasn’t on the plane to Wales but played for Western Province in their Currie Cup game against the Sigma Lions last week.
Dobson believes Edinburgh, like his own team, have evolved towards becoming a better attacking team since the two sides played to a 20-all draw in Edinburgh last October.
“Edinburgh, judging from the side that played their last game against the Glasgow Warriors, will be more similar to the side that we played against than they have been for much of the season,” said Dobson.
“They have evolved their game since then though and like to play ball in hand rugby, they have cracker backs like we do, and are no longer the set piece, defensive oriented team they were. Their flyhalf likes to attack and has X-factor and is a different kind of player to Jaco van der Walt, who played in the game against us. They’ve become much more of an attacking team.”