EVAN ROOS FEATURE: Stormers star offers too much to be ignored

The Springboks are in action in two weeks from now when they open their 2024 season and the next World Cup cycle by playing Wales at Twickenham. Evan Roos won’t want to be playing in that game. His focus is on getting the DHL Stormers as far as they can in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, and the London game clashes with the URC final.

After that though Roos will want to be involved, and with his excellent performance in a win over England at Twickenham in 2022 still writ large in the memory, he should be. Duane Vermeulen is retired, Jasper Wiese is suspended. We’re not sure about the fitness of Kwagga Smith. And anyway, the 24-year-old Roos is surely the next cab off the rank at No 8.

More than that, his form in both the URC and in the Investec Champions Cup has been such that he is bashing the door down to remind Rassie Erasmus and his coaching team that this should be his four year World Cup cycle. The Paarl Boys High product will have been told by Erasmus and then Bok coach Jacques Nienaber what he needed to do to become more established as an international player when his breakthrough season of 2021/22, when he took several URC season awards, did not lead to immediate recognition at national level.

What those things were is not public knowledge - it is understood though his ability to field the ball comfortably in the back field was one of them - but this season he has excelled in so many different roles for the Stormers that it is hard to imagine he has left any box unticked. The Bok coach loves versatile players, and this season Roos has played all three back row positions - and done well every time.

“There is always room to improve but it has been great playing all three positions as it broadens my expertise. No 6 and No 8 are quite similar, there’s not too much difference and I am able to play the same kind of role there, but blindside flank is very different,” he says.

“It is great to learn those skills that are required. I have played 6, 7 and 8 this season and it is lekker to have that versatility as it puts another arrow in your arsenal because as a top level rugby player you can never have enough. It is always good to be more versatile, but first things first, wherever Dobbo (coach John Dobson) needs me to play I will fill in for him. It is awesome and a privilege to play for the Stormers and everyone in the squad has that attitude.”

FOCUS IS ON URC SUCCESS

Like every South African player, Roos wants to play for the Boks, and he shouldn’t even need to be asked that question, it is so obvious, but right now the Stormers come first.

“We have got to win a quarterfinal and then a semifinal, that is all that is on my mind right now. I will not lie, playing for the Boks is the dream of every South African player, but the first priority is to get it right in training and then get it right on the field in Glasgow on Saturday night,” said Roos.

With several internationals in the Glasgow team, and with the Stormers having had some close games against the Warriors at the Scotstoun in the past, Roos is looking forward to what he says will be a tough challenge.

“It is going to be a tough game, we know that. Franco (Smith) is a good coach and he has been doing good things there. They like to get the ball to do the work, so we will be tested,” he says.

“We do analysis and study them and see what they do and you can see they are really well coached. Apart from their running game, they have a really good maul, and that is even more significant on a 4G pitch. Any pack that gets momentum on a 4G pitch is difficult to stop. If you can come up on the positive side on a 4G pitch, then you are in a good place. Glasgow have also given some other teams in the URC problems at scrum time.”

“GRAVEL ROAD” BRINGS SILVER LINING


Roos, like the rest of the Stormers players and staff, would prefer to have a home quarterfinal to look forward to so that their supporters could be there in the stands supporting them, but he does see a silver lining to the fact this will be a first away playoff game for the Cape side.

“Dobbo keeps talking about this being a grond pad (gravel road) season, and it has felt different to the previous two seasons in the URC, but that is what builds momentum and builds squads, and builds character. If you can find your rhythm just before the playoffs that is the perfect time to do it and then you must just ride that confidence.

“We always look at it positively. As the English saying goes, there is a silver lining for us. It would be nicer if we were going on the tar road and not the gravel one, but the silver lining is that we will learn a lot from playing a tough away playoff game like Saturday’s.”

Roos certainly has momentum with him. The impressive solo try he scored against the Emirates Lions advertised the fact that Roos, although having developed in so many other areas since then, still has the pace that made him such a stand-out player when just out of school and he remains a really exciting player when carrying the ball.

After a series of injuries stunted the momentum he picked up in that remarkable first season of the URC for him, he reckons his groove is back.

“It is never bad scoring a try for the Stormers at the DHL Stadium,” Roos laughed. “It will be a core memory of mine. Last season was a frustrating one for me. I had a rib injury and then a knee injury and then went straight from being injured into two playoff games. This season I felt like I had my groove back until I broke my jaw, but now I feel like I am back there again.”

LOSING RED MIST HAS HELPED HIS “EVANLUTION”

A key part of what a fellow rugby writer called Roos’ “Evanlution” as a player this year has been the dropping of the red mist that has occasionally descended and which has at times in the past cost his team. Roos did not need reminding that when the Stormers lost to the Warriors in Glasgow last November, the hosts were helped in no small measure that saw him and Joseph Dweba off the field due to yellow cards picked up at the end of the first half and carried into the crucial initial part of the second.

Roos acknowledges that there has been a conscious effort on his part to clean up his act and that is why when teams target him now, which they always do because he’s such an important player for the Stormers, he quite literally offers the other cheek in the sense that he smiles affably rather than retaliate.

“When I started playing I was young and wanted to prove myself. I was only 21. But I have spoken to some of the senior players and the coaches and have come to the realisation that you don’t intimidate someone by pushing them around,” he explains.

“You are there to do your job. You are there to make Cape Town smile, you are not there to cost your team and you don’t want to be branded as one of the bully guys. Obviously when you play rugby it is 80 minutes of violence and chaos, but it is a gentleman’s game and I want to make the coaches and the union proud, my family and my girlfriend proud.

“It not nice to see that (kind of behaviour) on the field and you are representing more than yourself. I guess you could say I have taken on the responsibility to be a certain way,” adds the dynamic Stormers loose forward.

ANOTHER SMART MOVE FROM DOBSON

That Roos can do that while playing openside flank, where one of the core roles is assumed to be to be a pain in the butt of the opposition players, and quite obstructionist at times, is to his credit. There will be times at the Scotstoun, like there were in Galway against Connacht, that Roos will be close to the line when it comes to how the referee interprets his actions.

But moving Roos there in the continued absence of star ball scavenger Deon Fourie, a player that no-one will deny the Stormers are missing sorely, has proved a smart move on the part of Dobson.

“The way Evan is playing, and in particular the way he is behaving on the field, with his discipline despite sometimes quite intense provocation, has been superb. I have been thrilled with him at No 6,” said Dobson about a selection that he intends to continue into a third successive game at the Scotstoun.

“The injuries to Nama (Xaba) and Deon did put us under a bit of pressure. We played there with Marcel (Theunissen) and Willie (Engelbrecht) but neither of them are out and out ball stealers (on the ground). Willie can maybe be taught to be but Marcel is really a real No 7/No 8 high intensity worker and carrier.

“And actually our best guy on the ground there is Evan. That was the one piece (of the selection).

The second piece was that it didn’t feel quite right the way Hacjivah (Dayimani) has been playing this season not having him in the starting team. I think BJ (Dixon) has now cemented himself at 7.

“The third element was that 6 and 8, if you look at Deon and the way that Evan is playing at the moment, are very similar in that you carrying the ball between the tramlines a lot and working a lot there on both offensive and defensive breakdowns, which he is very good at.

“The fourth reason, although it certainly wasn’t the main reason I made the selection and it was just a happy offshoot, is that the move has been good for Evan’s growth. As he says, it puts another arrow in his quiver. I am thrilled with the way he is tracking as a No 6.”

CURRENT CONFIGURATION WORKS

Dobson’s ideal loose forward combination would probably be Fourie at openside, Dixon at blindside, Roos at No 8 and Dayimani as the impact player, but he reckons he’s getting a lot from the current configuration.

“We have Evan excelling at 6 and we still get to have Hacjivah on the field. It hasn’t quite flowed for Hacjivah as much yet but the two flanks are going brilliantly. Hacjivah is a game breaker. Those moments don’t happen several times a game, they happen once or twice. It will come. He has been carrying very well. The ideal mix would be Deon at 6 and Evan at 8 but Evan has just played so brilliantly there.”

Dobson wouldn’t specify for obvious reasons, but Roos has also played a key role in a tweak to the maul set up off a lineout, something that has paid off for the Stormers (when they get their lineout accuracy right) and led to the thrilling 20 metre driving maul try that won the game against the Lions.

Roos brings so much that surely the question of whether he should become a regular Bok this year or not has an answer that has become obvious.