Dilemma in Dunedin
Coaches have to rest players
THEStormers have to rest captain Duane Vermeulen this week. The Highlanders may have a similar problem. Vermeulen led the team out for the first five games of the Stormers’ Super Rugby campaign and – in complying with SA Rugby’s World Cup player management programme – the skipper is now set to watch from the sidelines as his teammates get a month-long tour under way with a clash against the Highlanders in Dunedin on Saturday (kick-off 8.35am).
The All Blacks have also committed their top players to a resting programme, with teams required to de-activate their contingent of World Cup contenders for two Super Rugby matches each.
The Blues, Chiefs and Crusaders reportedly rested a total of eight All Blacks in the first round. The Hurricanes started their season in Johannesburg and waited until round five to give winger Cory Jane a breather.
But the Highlanders were consigned to a bye in round one and coach Jamie Joseph has yet to rest the likes of Aaron Smith, Ben Smith or Malakai Fekitoa.
All three are important cogs in the Highlanders game plan.
Though he struggled last week, scrumhalf Aaron Smith usually adds a pin-point tactical weapon that is complemented by Ben Smith’s superior decision-making on the counter-attack. And Fekitoa, pictured, is an incisive strike-runner from outside centre.
With one more bye to come in the remaining 12 rounds before the play-offs, Joseph has to consider a pit-stop for at least one of his All Blacks this week to avoid having to play successive matches without the Test trio later on in the season.
The problem for the Highlanders is that their campaign is front-loaded with home games, of which they have already lost two.
The Stormers must have grimaced at the television on Friday when they watched the second of these two losses – the Hurricanes won 20-13 at the enclosed Forsyth Barr Stadium.
A win for the South Islanders would not only have ended the Hurricanes’ unbeaten start to the season, it could also have propelled the Highlanders into first place on the overall standings – heady stuff for a franchise that last finished in the top four in 2002.
However, instead of readying to face a team still red-eyed after excessive celebrations, and one fighting the temptation to indulge in play-off daydreams, the Stormers would today have been met with a grim reception when they touched down in Queenstown.
The Highlanders’ second loss at the Glasshouse this season relegated them to sixth place, with a slender, one-point lead over the Crusaders who thumped the travelling Cheetahs 57-14 on Saturday. They are also seven points behind the New Zealand Conference-leading Hurricanes.
South Africa’s flag-bearers, the Stormers have a one-point cushion on the Sharks, who host the one-win Western Force this week.
Victory over the Highlanders is imperative for the Stormers who must prove that the loss against the Chiefs was merely a bump in the road to Titletown and not the abrupt end to an unfinished freeway.
A loss against the Highlanders will erode confidence levels and make more imposing next week’s trip to Wellington to battle the Hurricanes (April 3, 9.35am) and the stopover in Sydney to challenge the defending champion Waratahs (April 11, 12.40pm) before the tour comes to a conclusion against the Force in Perth (April 11, 2.45pm).
The Stormers’ base for the first stop on a month-long tour of Australasia, quaint Queenstown, is situated roughly two hours’ drive west of the university town of Dunedin.
It is here that Allister Coetzee will spend the next few days plotting a comeback from the first loss of the season.
Vermeulen’s withdrawal promises a change to the back row, while Coetzee is also expected to recall fit-again enforcer lock Eben Etzebeth and mull a change in the halfbacks where Louis Schreuder and Kurt Coleman failed to impress last week.