Stormers need to be ‘polished’ in many areas

“IF WE were playing the game on Thursday, he would definitely not be able to play”. Those were Stormers assistant coach Paul Feeney’s words when asked about Damian Willemse’s availability for this weekend’s match against the Crusaders.

Willemse picked up an injury in the Stormers’ 34-27 defeat to the Waratahs at the weekend. And as the Stormers prepare to right the wrongs of Sydney against the defending champions in Christchurch, they are sweating over the exciting 19-yearold’s fitness following the quadriceps (front thigh) blow he was dealt.

Feeney confirmed they should know by tomorrow whether or not the pivot will be cleared to play in their second match of their three-match tour to Australasia.

“Damian has sustained a haematoma on his quad. It was quite a heavy knock,” the coach responsible for the Stormers’ unstructured attack and defence said from Sydney yesterday.

Should Willemse not be fit for the game in New Zealand, the Stormers will have two options for the No 10 jersey – George Whitehead, who came on when Willemse left the field, and Dillyn Leyds, who started on the wing at the weekend.

When the Stormers went on tour to New Zealand amid an injury crisis last year, injury to Robert du Preez in their first tour game saw Leyds stand in at flyhalf. Then there’s also Dewaldt Duvenage, who can also provide cover at 10.

“Obviously Damian is our preferred starting flyhalf, but we have confidence in George and I thought he did a reasonable job against the Waratahs.” Feeney said. “There was not one person that made a difference to what happened, and the end result.”

While the Stormers’ flyhalf situation is worrying, another aspect that didn’t impress in Sydney was their lineout – particularly the last one, which saw an overthrow by replacement hooker Dean Muir land in Waratahs hands and gave them an opportunity to score the winning try.

Apart from that fatal set-piece, there was also a botched lineout, and a scrum on their own 22 which saw the Stormers put themselves under pressure. And although the Stormers’ lineouts became more of a concern once Ramone Samuels – the starting hooker Down Under – was replaced by Muir, Feeney said Muir was not to blame for the lineout errors.

“Straight after the game the forwards had a meeting and guys like Pieter-Steph du Toit were quite direct about what went wrong. Dean threw two good darts…perfect, exactly where they needed to be. But unfortunately we had put substitute players on by then and the lifters and the jumpers just never co-ordinated properly. There was a misunderstanding.”

Feeney’s comments regarding those final lineouts make sense, seeing as how the lineout moves and calls should probably have been kept simple in the absence of the current first-choice hooker Bongi Mbonambi, whose appendix burst ahead of their game against the Jaguares.

Feeney also said they are going to have to be more polished.

“Some of the options we trained just never came off in the game, and some people got things wrong. We had a few options but were unable to finish what we started. We were good at creating but we need to be more polished.”