ADFSL

Stormers:

15. Jaco Taute, 14. Gio Aplon, 13. Juan de Jongh, 12. Damian de Allende, 11. Bryan Habana, 10. Kurt Coleman, 9. Louis Schreuder, 8. Duane Vermeulen (captain), 7. Don Armand, 6. Nizaam Carr, 5. De Kock Steenkamp, 4. Eben Etzebeth, 3. Frans Malherbe, 2. Martin Bezuidenhout, 1. Steven Kitshoff

Substitutes: 16. Stephan Coetzee, 17. Pat Cilliers, 18. Ruan Botha, 19. Michael Rhodes, 20. Rayn Smid, 21. Dewaldt Duvenage, 22. Pat Howard, 23. Gerhard van den Heever, 24. Joe Pietersen

OK so JdV, Burger, Jantjies, Kolisi and Fourie are the obvious 1st choice players missing. But still quite a strong team non the less. With Taute, Aplon, JdJ and Habana starting this team looks deadly out wide.

The only real weakness is Flyhalf and Scrumhalf. (well 9 is the Stormers weakest position). Coleman is a solid Vodacom cup level player but atm not really SR standard. It will be good though to give him a run to see what will happen if serious injury strike.

The team obviously lacks a fetcher. But I see the Cheetahs have also left out Schoeman.

All in all a lot stronger team then I previously envisioned. Esp if you consider the bench who boast Pat Cilliers, Rhodes and JoeP.

Will be an interesting game. Prob with lots of handling errors. I am interested to see if AC’s gameplan has evolved since SR ’12

Cheers

Firstly (like Blion said) my condolences to the Jantjies family for the tragedy. May he rest in peace.

Allister Coetzee rightfully gave Elton an indefinite break from rugby for the foreseeable future. Elton will definitively miss the two warm-up games and the situation will be “taken from there”.

With Peter Grant still in Japan and could be arriving anytime between 5 Feb to 25 Feb depending on how his team progress. If history is anything to go by he will probably be back either in the week leading up to the Bulls game or there after. So chances are good he will definitively miss the two warm-up games and if he is back by the 22nd he normally starts the season from the bench because of the travel fatigue ect.

With the other flyhalves on the Stormers book being van Aswegen and Coleman. Gary is still injured (isn’t he always?) and that only leaves Coleman and maybe Duvehage who has helped out before.

Whatever happens from here on in the Stormers will either field their 4th best FH (or Scrunhalf); a combination that has never played together or one that has last played together in SR 2012. Not ideal if you are AC.

Cheers.

As has been the trend in the past 2 seasons of SR. The Stormers tend to get an extended amount of injuries in one position. In 2011 it was FH in 2012 it was loose forward. In 2013 it seems to be hooker.

With Tiaan Liebenberg still out for an extended period. Young live wire Scarra injured himself during practice last week and his shoulder was operated on yesterday. He will now also be out for an extended period of time.

Luckily they still do have CC hero Deon Fourie and with some better props this season his size might not be such a disadvantage in 2013 come scrum time.

Also this being still the preseason AC and co still have ample time to recruit one or two back-up hookers.

If rumors are to be believed the Stormers even send an SOS to John Smith of all people to see if he would be interested in another SR stint.

Who ever they find will need to be a good scrumager. This will give them the choice if they feel the opposition scrum will have a bigger influence than the ball poaching skills of Fourie.

Who would you contract if you were AC?

We do live in a professional era and I am all for choosing overseas based players when needed.

But HM’s new policy of choosing players (who are available) from all over the world will have a very negative impact on SA rugby.

Now I am not talking about players like Strauss (josh and richardt), Nel or Barrit. Who all could play for the Boks (maybe) but decided to try and qualify for another nation. Nor am I talking about players like Botha, Fourie, Du Preez ect. who have done their bok stints and are cashing in at the end of their careers.

I am talking about current Bok’s who are now willing to play in England, France or Japan(less) because they know their chances of making the Bok squad are not lessened.  Players like Kruger and Habana(next season). Add to this that a guy like Flo who has become a Bok regular are not really contemplating returning anytime soon. This is only the beginning and if HM continues with his policy then many more regular Boks may start to follow them. Rumors are already surrounding Andries Bekker. I mean who would not want to earn more money?

Now I am not saying we should go the Nz route of never selecting any overseas based players. But we should maybe adopt the P.Divvy rule that we first select our best players who is playing in RSA and if we have a crises then we start looking at overseas based players.

Because although it sounds nice having a real professional era where you can select the best players never mind where they are playing this does come at some costs.

For one the players are only released a week before the tests starts and can’t be part of any in between training or think camps. The coach also have influence on when the player should be rested. (not that this is the case in SA any way atm)

Then there is the lowering of the standard of the local game, with so many regular Boks not playing even SR anymore the experience levels in the SR squads will drop considerably.

We also have to remember that when players have lived in another country for a long period their culture change and integrating overseas based players with the local ones will become more and more difficult.

It is no coincidence that Spain is dominating world soccer cause most of their players play in Spain. As to Brazil and Argentina who also has brilliant players but struggle to bond as teams.

There must be some motivation for players to stay in SA and play the rugby locally. It always has been that if you leave SA you severely lower your chances of playing for the Boks. But if HM are going to stick to his selection policies as is then there really is no incentive for the players to stay in SA.

Come on SARU for once step-up while the problem is still in its infancy and stop it dead. Make a policy that you can only select overseas based players in an emergency. This will force players to stay and those that have already left to really consider moving back!!!!!

Cheers.