When Warrick Gelant left the DHL Stormers after his starring role in last year’s successful Vodacom United Rugby Championship campaign, it left a big hole to fill. Clayton Blommetjies, who moved to the Cape from the Toyota Cheetahs in the off-season, would be the first to agree he is not a like for like replacement for the Springbok, and he is definitely no clone.
However he's doing a more than decent job in the last line of the Stormers defence, and it appears he’s growing in confidence and becoming more of a threat with each passing week. Perhaps in the beginning he was almost too unpredictable, in the sense that it undermined the assurance of those teammates around him that no-one except Blommetjies himself knew what he was going to do when he got the ball. As the season draws on, however, he’s fitting more comfortably into the system.
He scored two good tries in the game against the Cell C Sharks and was a constant threat when he ran the ball back at them. Blommetjies, who won the official Man of the Match Award, says he’s enjoying life at the Stormers and enjoys the culture and team ethic at the Cape franchise. He illustrated that when he was asked after the game whether it was he who was credited with the fourth Stormers try, or Angelo Davids, who had tapped the ball back from his ingoal area and may just have touched it down himself.
“Agh, it doesn’t matter who was credited with that try, I haven’t really thought about it as it is irrelevant, what matters was that it was scored for the team,” he said.
Like most of the newcomers at the Stormers, Blommetjies is clearly enjoying his new team and after years of being such a loyal servant to the Cheetahs he’s shining as a representative of the region where he grew up (he was born in Paarl and made his first class debut for Boland).