Cobus Reinach is likely to be out of the rest of the Vodacom URC season after sustaining an injury against Glasgow Warriors and JD Schickerling was ruled out for six months during the buildup week so it would be wrong to say it’s all plain sailing for the DHL Stormers.
The Cape team do have scrumhalves in reserve and Imad Khan is undeniably going to be a future star, but if you look beyond the hype around France’s Antoine Dupont, veteran Reinach could arguably be the best No 9 in the world right now. Of course a player with that class and experience will be missed when the playoffs arrive.
Fortunately the Stormers halfback should be back in rugby by the time the Springboks are back in action, and he has posted pictures on social media stating that “it’s not an ACL”. In other words, not as serious an injury as might have been feared when helped from the field in obvious discomfort in the second half of a 48-12 win in which he played a big part.
If the Reinach injury cast a bit of a pall over an otherwise positive day for the hosts, then so did the Schickerling injury during the week. The Stormers still have two fit locks in Adre Smith and Ruben van Heerden, and Salmaan Moerat may well be back for the last league game against Connacht and, according to director of rugby John Dobson, “definitely in the playoffs”.
The Stormers do have options. The 24-year-old Connor Evans has always had a big rap as a future prospect and he has played enough for the Stormers now for his career to undergo a gear shift, something that can happen quite suddenly for a tight forward.
And Ben-Jason Dixon is a pretty decent lock when he plays there, with Marcell Theunissen and Hacjivah Dayimani both perfect fits at No 7 depending on what game the Stormers want to play.
MORE BALANCED APPROACH WORKS
The game they want to play is the key question for the Stormers, for while he railed against critics for being too harsh on his team after their unexpected loss to Connacht the previous week, he did appear to agree to the consensus of the criticism - that the Stormers departed from their usual script in that game.
He and skipper Ruhan Nel emphatically denied at the post-match press conference to the 33-24 defeat to the Irish team that the emotion around the death of the popular team manager Chippie Solomon, and the drive to commemorate his life in fitting style with a victory, had impacted on that performance. But the line changed later in the week, and after the Glasgow game.
On the eve of the Glasgow game, both Dobson and Nel spoke about the need to be more ruthless and cold blooded, meaning eschew the emotion of previously, and there was something clinical and impressive about the way they dismantled a Glasgow team that has known only victory against the Stormers, including in two playoff games, since 2022.
Dobson said afterwards that while his team had tried too hard to create magic against Connacht, when it wasn’t necessary to do so, they got it right with a more balanced approach against the team that started the match at the top of the URC log.
“If you are saying we played more conservatively in this game, then yes, probably. It was more like playoff rugby,” said Dobson.
“Last week we were desperate and forced things, shovelling inferior ball. This week we applied pressure, we knew we could put some pressure on set-piece wise and that was effective. We didn’t need to create the magic today, so that helped. I thought the decision-making was excellent.”
It was a return to the approach that buried the Bulls at Loftus six weeks ago and which also helped them to the top of the URC log with a sequence of five overseas wins in succession through October to the end of November.
That is significant, because back over the equator is where the Stormers head next, with Ulster and Cardiff lying in wait for two final league games that will determine if the Stormers reach their goal of securing a top place finish for the first time.
LOCK INJURIES DO IMPACT
The absence of Schickerling and Moerat does negate the Stormers’ ability to go with a supersonic bench, which was what engineered gear-shifts in away games against Munster, Benetton and Bayonne earlier in the season, and they can definitely ill afford another injury to a second row forward.
However, even without four quality locks in the match day 23 they still dominated Glasgow physically, and that is significant given that the way Glasgow outmuscled the Stormers in last year’s playoff at the Scotstoun was probably the most disturbing aspect of that game from a Cape rugby point of view.
No-one appeared to mention it on Saturday, but it did feel like the Stormer laid a ghost to rest in terms of the way they reversed the trend of recent Glasgow games and for the first time after games against the Stormers it was Franco Smith who had to admit that his men were just outplayed by a much stronger team (on the day).
Retain the attitude of the Glasgow game and, even allowing for how difficult Ulster might be to beat at Ravenshill on a Friday night, there is no reason that the Stormers shouldn’t head into the playoffs in pole position.