The injury that forced Gary Porter off early last week has prompted an SOS from the DHL Stormers to former Junior Springbok, Vodacom Bulls and Stade Francais lock Hendre Stassen.
Porter was helped from the field after going down in obvious discomfort early in the 10-3 Vodacom United rugby Championship defeat to Munster at Thomond Park at the weekend.
Coach John Dobson said afterwards that the injury, which looked like an ankle problem, would most likely rule him out for some time and sure enough assistant coach Dawie Snyman confirmed on Tuesday that Porter is heading home.
“It didn’t look good for him and unfortunately Gary is going home, but Hendre Stassen has come out to join us,” said Snyman.
“It is interesting how we tend to get injuries in the same position, we’ve already had Salmaan (Moerat) ruled out for a few months because of an injury, but fortunately we have developed depth in that position.”
Adre Smith, who was injured for most of last year, has done well in Moerat’s absence, and he was the player who completed the most tackles for the Stormers in the loss to Munster after coming onto the field as Porter’s replacement.
Not much has been seen yet of Stassen in the Cape as Dobson was intending to have him ready for the next home game against Zebre in Stellenbosch on 2 December but he is understood to be a hard, physical player in a similar mould to Smith, who like Smith and Ben-Jason Dixon can also move to blindside flank when needed.
Dobson is expecting a lot of the two-metre tall and 120-kilogram Stassen, who although 25 is still at an early stage of his rugby career after missing four years after testing positive for a banned substance while he was playing for Stade Francais in the French leagues.Â
He stayed behind when the squad went on tour as it was felt he needed to get more acquainted with the Stormers systems.
If he gets onto the field in Cardiff on Friday night, it will mean all the Stormers newcomers signed up in the off-season would have got a chance to wear the franchise jersey in the competition.
Referring to the loss to Munster, Snyman said the performance had been enough of an improvement on earlier efforts to put the players in a good space even though the result was not in the team’s favour.
“It was a solid performance, not too bad, and we took heart from it as we were playing a good team on a field they play well on in very wet and windy conditions and with just a bit of luck here or there we could have got the result,” said the Stormers attack coach.
“One of our learnings as a team is the adaptation to different conditions and situations, and that is why we came away from the Munster game with some confidence. It was wet and windy and yet we came close to getting the result. We must just make sure we learn from the experience.”