Stormers look super slick

Newlands double-header for SA franchises set to be a pumping, near-sold-out spectacle

WITH a new season comes new opportunities, new challenges, perhaps new players, and certainly renewed title hopes.

While some teams’ chances of lifting the world’s most exciting rugby competition’s trophy may be better than others, there’s no doubt that every team will want to get the 2019 Super Rugby season off to the best possible start.

And the South African teams will tomorrow have a super platform on which they can do just that.

With the SuperHero double-header at Newlands set to be a pumping, near sold-out spectacle, all four South African franchises will have a massive opportunity to not only run some final diagnostics when it comes to combinations, but also to fill up on the confidence reserves before the competition kicks off.

And while this might just be two warm-up games (you know, ‘you can’t read too much into those’), these ones just might be different (the expected crowd attendance certainly is – it not only differs from the standard pre-season figures, but it thumps most local Super Rugby crowd figures as well).

So, while some off-the-field, behind-the-scenes issues in the Stormers camp may have been the talk of Cape Town in recent weeks, here are three promising, maybe even super, on-field touches the Cape side showed in their first warm-up assignment (and it’s three touches you can look forward to when the team in Thor jerseys take on the team featuring Thor himself).

SUPER DEPTH

There’s just something about a side that can leave out some of their most elite, yet still look good ... very, very good.

While Robbie Fleck opted to give a number of his Springboks a skip for the friendly against their traditional foes, there are a number of players whose names alone signal top competition – for their opposition and their teammates.

The back three will be a proper internal contest, with the likes of Dillyn Leyds vs Damian WIllemse, Seabelo Senatla vs Sergeal Petersen and Dan Kriel vs Dan du Plessis topping the list.

At scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies will look to build on his impressive and equally exciting Currie Cup productions off the bench, and up front, Juarno Augustus and Sikhumbuzo Notshe’s brawl for the No 8 jersey promises to be an appetising one, while Jaco Coetzee will be a man on a mission to again show just why he was the topic of so much talk last season.

And can a promising youngster like Salmaan Moerat ever not deserve a mention? No.

In a union that can confidently call themselves a star-lock factory, the former SA Schools skipper knows he has to make the most of every chance he gets. And the same goes for that front row.

SUPER SLICK

What you see during the pre-season might differ from what you see in Super Rugby like what’s deemed an illegal tackle differs from week to week but, at the very least, it does show you something. And in their first friendly the Stormers showed quite some promise with ball in hand.

Although there certainly were lapses in that regard last season, the team looked set on letting the ball do the work in Constantia last week.

Will they stick to it come their Super Rugby opener, or even tomorrow? Who knows.

But what they showed last week clearly makes their date against the Bulls one to look forward to.

SUPER GROUNDWORK

While Fleck is expecting the pre-season fixture to come with a fair amount of ‘fun and games’, there’s nothing not serious about this Bulls outfit.

Pote Human went for a Springbok-hefty squad featuring the likes of Duane Vermeulen, Handré Pollard, Jesse Kriel, Warrick Gelant, Lood de Jager and Trevor Nyakane in the starting line-up. And seeing as these two teams will meet again in their opener in two weeks’ time (with a lot to be revealed in terms of tactics tomorrow), only time will tell which coach was on the money in terms of their selection approach.

Back to the point – Vermeulen’s presence in the Bulls’ loose trio alone makes the breakdown area one that should be highlighted in bold, italics and underlined. But given the eagerness and aggression the Stormers showed in this department in their first warm-up (even though it was against club players), it should make for a good contest at Cape Town Stadium ... and it’ll make a good test for the Stormers’ loosies, of course.

STORMERS TEAM: 15 Dillyn Leyds, 14 Seabelo Senatla, 13 JJ Engelbrecht, 12 Dan Kriel, 11 SP Marais, 10 Joshua Stander, 9 Jano Vermaak, 8 Juarno Augustus, 7 Cobus Wiese, 6 Jaco Coetzee, 5 Chris van Zyl (captain), 4 Salmaan Moerat, 3 Michael Kumbirai, 2 Scarra Ntubeni, 1 Ali Vermaak

Replacements: 16 Chad Solomon, 17 Corne Fourie, 18 Wilco Louw, 19 Ernst van Rhyn, 20 JD Schickerling, 21 Sikhumbuzo Notshe, 22 Kobus van Dyk, 23 Herschel Jantjies, 24 Damian Willemse, 25 Sergeal Petersen, 26 Dan du Plessis