DHL Stormers coach John Dobson has often likened current Junior Springbok captain Sacha Mngomezulu to Damian Willemse, and it is easy to see why.
Just like Willemse, who will be returning home from the Stormers’ Vodacom United Rugby Championship tour of Europe now that Clayton Blommetjies is ready to join following his wedding, 20-year-old Mngomezulu can play just about anywhere in the backline. Although primarily a flyhalf, he has featured in the past as a fullback, and made his first start for the Stormers as a part of the midfield.
He is also an invaluable player to have on the books because of his potential future star qualities, and it is quite uncanny how similar Dobson sounds when he talks about Mngomezulu to his predecessor Robbie Fleck when Willemse was first coming through. Fleck used to often speak of Willemse as “the future of the union”, and Dobson is now doing the same about Mngomezulu.
“He is integral to the future of this team and the union. He was absolutely outstanding today. He is so competitive and is very special,” said Dobson after watching Mngomezulu contribute 22 points to the Stormers’ 37-20 bonus point win over Zebre in Parma.
Those points came from a try, four conversions and three penalties in a scrappy game where his kicking from the tee was perhaps more crucial than it might have been in another game. It was interesting to see him take the kicking duties ahead of first choice flyhalf Manie Libbok, and it does give the Stormers an interesting extra option in that department.
Not that it was just Mngomezulu’s kicking that was a standout - he also delivered an influential performance in general play, and his try was added to by what in soccer would be referred to as an excellent assist, with a crucial score early in the second half by scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies being the product of his stab kick and then gather.
“We tried to grow him by giving him the goal-kicking and he did really well. Our plan with him is probably to let him settle at 12 and then longer-term he could be one of the better flyhalves in this country.
“We are very, very excited about all these young players that we’ve got, whether it’s Sacha, Suleiman Hartzenberg or Imad Khan, Conor Evans and Paul de Villiers. We are excited about the future.”
So the Stormers should be, with the opportunities being given to young players blotting out some of the disturbing features of the Stormers’ win in Italy, such as their poor lineout performance and high error-rate in a game where frequently it looked like Zebre had been shut out only for them to come back into the contest.
Dobson would stop short of describing the extra options that Mngomezulu has set up as a headache, as he is taking on a squad system in selection this season. That means that players will get opportunities across the course of the year and there isn’t great pressure to ensure they become first choice fixtures in the team for every single game.
“Sacha was outstanding but he doesn’t have to start every game in what will probably be a breakout season. Manie (Libbok) is definitely our No 1 flyhalf, Damian will play at 12 and 15 depending on how Clayton goes and our injury situation at centre. It’s not impossible to see Manie at 10, Sacha at 12 and Damian at fullback, if Clayton’s not around.”
Blommetjies will be around this week, which means we can probably expect Mngomezulu to continue at inside centre when the Stormers face the Ospreys in Swansea on Friday night.