There’s no finish line for rejuvenated Senatla and Stormers

How good he was feeling before the start of the season just added to the frustration that Seabelo Senatla experienced when he spent several months of the DHL Stormers’ 2022/2023 campaign on the sidelines.

Senatla sustained an injury to a pectoral muscle when he was cleaned out dangerously by Irish international centre Bundee Aki in the opening Vodacom United Rugby match against Connacht in Stellenbosch in September. He says it prevented him from capitalising on the confidence he felt as the Stormers started out the URC as title holders and also prepared to make their first foray into the Heineken Champions Cup.

He’s made the most of his return, with the wing looking sharp and hungry in the two away derbies against the Cell C Sharks and the Vodacom Bulls.

“It has been amazing being back. I had only one game at the start of the season and then a long layoff,” said Senatla during a break in the preparations for the return URC match against the Sharks at DHL Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

“The reason it is good to be back is because I felt really great at the start of the season. Better than I have in a long while. In fact, it started last year and then I carried it through the pre-season. Now I want to capitalise on the groundwork I did then.”

Senatla said that with his injury now consigned to the past, he was just grateful to be part of a team that was achieving it’s objective of putting smiles on the faces of the people of Cape Town.

“It has just been a two game stint for me but it has been so easy to slot into a team where everyone knows their roles and which is as well coached as ours is. When I slotted back in it felt like I was just completing a puzzle,” he said.

LOST NONE OF HIS PACE

Senatla turned 30 last month but has shown since his return to action that he has lost none of the pace that made him such a star for the Blitzboks over a long period of time. He still has time too to achieve his goal of becoming a Springbok in the 15-man format, although for now he appears happy to just be on the field again and performing for the Stormers.

“Our aim is to put smiles on people’s faces and I think we are doing that and I just feel privileged to be part of that,” Senatla said.

Not that Senatla, or anyone else in the Stormers team for that matter, is taking it for granted that the run of success will continue on Saturday. He says that retaining the South African Shield was a big focus, although not the only one, at the start of the season, and the team is now on the cusp of completing that mission. But he knows that the kind of performance turned in when the Stormers beat the Sharks 46-19 in the first round game doesn’t just happen.

“We try to focus just on each game, but the Shield was certainly one of our goals coming into the season. It is easy to do something once, but consistency is a different thing. The thing with this team is that we are never at the end, there is no finish line. We want to achieve as much as we can,” he said.

“And it feels like we are always improving. We always want to be on our game. It is easy to come out once and put out a performance like that (the one in Durban), the question now is can we do it again against the Sharks. We are willing to chase that level and there is no finish line for us.

“We did a lot of things amazingly that day but we also had a few flip ups. We are constantly trying to get as close as we possibly can to whatever our best is,” added the former Blitzbok.

FRIENDLY RIVALRY WITH OLD MATE WERNER

Talking of Blitzboks, Senatla is looking forward to meeting up with one of his former Sevens teammates, Werner Kok, as well as his former Blitzbok coach, Neil Powell, who is now director of rugby at the Sharks, at the weekend. Kok did not play in the Durban game but he and Senatla embraced afterwards and had a good chat.

“You could see Neil was too frustrated with his team’s performance after the game, he wasn’t in a good mood, but I had dinner with Werner the night before the game. What we built up at the Sevens was special. We all remain good friends outside of it and regularly have dinners together when we are in the same city.

“Werner didn’t play in Durban but I know he will be coming for me on Saturday. It works like that when you are good friends. You want to be able to say afterwards ‘I got you’. It is not carried on after the game. After the game we will grab the chance to have a Nandos. But I want to do that having got the upper hand against him, and it will be the same with him.”