Roos back as Moerat and Wandesile play from bench
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Exciting centre Wandesile Simelane will make his DHL Stormers debut off the bench in Saturday’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship derby against the Hollywoodbets Sharks in Durban.
Simelane moved from the Vodacom Bulls to the Stormers at the start of the year and has impressed Stormers coach John Dobson hugely in training, with his selection as back-up to the starting midfield of Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Suleiman Hartzenberg reflecting Dobson’s faith in him after his short time with the Stormers.
As anticipated some key players return from injury straight into the starting team, including Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Evan Roos, while Salmaan Moerat, selected as the regular captain at the start of the campaign but out injured since the first match against the Emirates Lions in Johannesburg, is returning from the bench.
The Stormers bench looks a strong one, with Moerat and Simelane joined by the powerful loosehead prop Sti Stihole, the talented utility forward Ben-Jason Dixon and 2019 Springbok World Cup winning scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies among the replacements. With Bok tighthead Frans Malherbe still not ready to play a game even though he is back in training, veteran Brok Harris will continue in his role as front-row backup.
Dobson has opted to start with young Jurie Matthee at flyhalf. Matthee made a promising debut for the Stormers when they lost narrowly to Leicester Tigers at Welford Road at the start of the Investec Champions Cup.
This Hollywoodbets Kings Park game is being played as part of the Origin Round in the competition, with the players celebrating their origins by wearing their school or club socks. In keeping with that, the Stormers team announcement included where the players were schooled, with unsurprisingly the likes of Paarl Gimnasium, Paul Roos, Paarl Boys and Bishops featuring strongly in the line-up, plus inevitably Grey College in Bloemfontein.
Stormers captain Neethling Fouche was schooled at the well known rugby factory in the Free State, as well the highly promising young hooker Andre-Hugo Venter, who is backing up Joseph Dweba from the bench in the Durban game.
Here is our team for the @Vodacom #URC Origin Round derby in Durban on Saturday.
— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) February 16, 2024
📢 Full announcement https://t.co/sc6GiAVlVx#SHAvSTO #iamastormer #dhldelivers #FromGrassRootsToGreatness pic.twitter.com/E62PBCPtWt