Jean de Villiers
The Stormers have received a massive blow with the news that centre and captain Jean de Villiers has injured ligaments in his hand.
It wasn’t the stronger team that won this match, there wasn’t one. It was a little bit of perhaps slightly better planning by the Stormers, and a little bit of luck.
Three things struck me about yesterday’s game – The Stormers didn’t succumb to the Blues mind games, the tight five finally seemed to strike a chord, and the manners of the Newlands crowd are despicable.
The Stormers team to play the Blues was announced and sees only one positional change – Peter Grant slots into the No. 10 jersey, at the expense of Gary van Aswegen who drops the bench for the game on Friday night at 19:10 at Newlands, Cape Town.
Two from two and a bye next week for the Stormers, thats 12 points in the bag, and thats what counts. The Stormers used their ‘get out of jail free’ card this weekend, and between now and the Blues in 2 weeks, there’s a lot of work to be done.
For the Sharks it is 0 from 2 with 2 meagre bonus points.
Juan de Jongh - Fit again
Schalk Burger - Crocked
Some good news, tempered with some bad news…
Juan de Jongh returns to the fold this week in preparation for the Stormers game against the Sharks, but the initial assessment of Schalk Burger’s injury was further compounded by news now that Schalk Burger, their mercurial captain and one-man wrecking machine, will be out for at least 6 weeks if not more, with damaged medial knee ligaments.
Andries Bekker and Jean de Villiers have some injury niggles, Rynhardt Elstadt is on his way back… and Peter Grant joins the Stormers this week from Japan.
Stormers grind out a 13 point margin win against the Hurricanes at Newlands.
The main centre pairing for the Stormers have heaps of experience, but thereafter it wears a bit thin pretty quickly.