Wandi is 'special' but now Stormers face prop crisis

Although he wouldn’t have enjoyed his team’s charitable attitude to an Edinburgh team that should have been buried by a lot more than 22 points, DHL Stormers coach John Dobson had a few reasons to be upbeat after his side’s 43-21 win in Cape Town.

The Stormers’ attacking pizzazz is back in abundance, and the fact that missed scoring opportunities can be a topic on a night when your team scores seven tries is surely a tellingly positive comment on the Cape side’s strike ability. As suspected, Wandisile Simelane, recruited in December from the Vodacom Bulls, has added immensely to an already incisive attacking game with his skill set and slippery running.

Dobson has a habit of helping gifted players who either go through a slump or are not rated elsewhere become Springboks and so after listening to Dobson speak after the win over Edinburgh, it might appear the sky is now the limit for the Jeppe old boy.

“Wandi is going to be special,” said Dobson after a game where Simelane was a constant threat to the Edinburgh defence and really should have capped his star performance with a try of his own but was denied by a TMO that certainly wasn’t applying the clear and obvious dictum when ruling there was separation between hand and ball. The on-field decision was a try.

COACH ADMITS TO POSSIBLE MISTAKE

The 26-year-old Simelane has now started two consecutive games for the Stormers, with the Edinburgh game being preceded by the friendly against Gallagher Premiership leaders Northampton Saints, and he has excelled in both.

He made his Stormers debut as a replacement quite late in the game against the Sharks, and Dobson felt that wasn’t enough to prepare him for the big north/south face-off at Loftus against the Bulls a few weeks later. Instead, he retreaded inside centre Dan du Plessis to outside centre alongside Damian Willemse in the No 12 jersey. He now reckons that might have been a mistake.

“If I was to replay the game at Loftus I might do things differently. We thought hard about playing him there, on that field against his old team, and Dan is not really a 13. Maybe I made a mistake. He was very good today,” said Dobson.

It wasn’t because Ruhan Nel, the usual Stormers outside centre, was injured that Simelane was brought to the Cape as a swap for Cornel Smit, who is now at the Bulls, but the Nel injury sustained against the Sharks on the second day of last year did make Simelane’s arrival timeous.

LOOKING FOR A LOOSEHEAD

Dobson now needs a timeous arrival at loosehead prop, where the injuries to Ali Vermaak, Sti Sithole and now Lizo Gqoboko (again) have brought about what he isn’t shy to admit is a crisis for him.

"It is now a crisis, to be honest. Lizo rolled his ankle and with scrumming pressure, rolled ankles are quite significant. So, that is Lizo, Sti, Ali, Leon Lyons and Kwenzo Blose all out now. So we are going to have to get somebody in otherwise we won’t be compliant for next week against Ulster.”

Dobson tried before the weekend’s game to secure the services of Toyota Cheetahs loosehead Schalk Ferreira, a veritable veteran who started his senior career at the Stormers many, many moons ago, but was unable to complete the deal because of the Bloemfontein team’s development partnership with the Ospreys.

“We are in trouble and that is the truth. It will be someone in South Africa.

“We can’t borrow from the Cheetahs because they fulfilled their loan quota. We thought we could get Schalk. It would be quite funny if Brok Harris was substituted by an older player. We wanted Schalk because he is an old Stormer, but they have already fulfilled the loan quota with Ospreys. We are going to need somebody in on Monday.”

The loosehead crisis has again underlined the crucial role being played by veteran Harris, who has played a few games at loosehead recently after playing at tighthead for most of the early part of the season. He wore the No 1 jersey at the start against Edinburgh, was substituted by Gqoboko and then had to go back on again once the former Bulls player rolled his ankle.

PITY DWEBA HASN’T GOT EXPERIENCE AT PROP

While prop might be a crisis, with an SOS needing to be answered, Dobson has the opposite problem in many other positions. For a start, fullback, where Warrick Gelant was outstanding against the Sharks and Bulls but Damian Willemse was stellar against Edinburgh.

With Ben-Jason Dixon nothing short of outstanding in his first start in the No 7 jersey in a while, and Nama Xaba doing well as a replacement for Deon Fourie, there is also a lot of congestion when it comes to the queue of players lining up for game time at loose forward.

Dobson’s earlier mention of hooker Dweba’s throwing was also significant - his throwing was excellent when he came on for Andre-Hugo Venter later in the game. If you consider that Scarra Ntubeni and the promising JJ Kotze are also on the Stormers' books, there’s no shortage of hookers.

Indeed, if you consider his build, it is a huge pity that loosehead is such a specialist position, or else Dweba might have been the perfect man to slot into the No 1 jersey… it can’t happen if he hasn’t trained there, but seeing Dobson has trained Hacjivah Dayimani on the wing, maybe he should set about adding some utility value to Dweba before next season.