Rodney Reiners column
WHILE THE Stormers have been dealt a massive blow in the form of hooker Bongi Mbonambi’s absence as they prepare for their match against the Waratahs this Saturday, they have also been boosted by the return of Pieter-Steph du Toit.
The Springbok hooker was a late withdrawal from their Super Rugby opener against the Jaguares after his appendix burst on Friday – leaving the Stormers with Ramone Samuels and Super Rugby newbie Dean Muir to stand in.
Du Toit, on the other hand, has recovered from the back injury that kept him out of the Stormers’ first match and has been named in Robbie Fleck’s 27-man touring squad.
Regarding Mbonambi’s, pictured, lay-off period and Muir’s performance on Saturday, Fleck said: “It’s not good. He (Mbonambi) had an emergency operation, his appendix burst. So he’s out of tour. He’ll be healthy in two weeks or so.
“Dean Muir had a very good pre-season and it was tough not to include him in our squad. He works incredibly hard and when he got selected the boys were chuffed for him because he deserves it. He carried well and he defended well.”
The Stormers will face the Waratahs in Sydney, before travelling to New Zealand where they will meet the Crusaders and Highlanders.
Regarding the Stormers’ performance against the Jaguares on Saturday, Fleck said it’s their decision-making that let them down in their close 28-20 win.
In the first Super Rugby game of the 2018 season, the Stormers struggled to put away a Jaguares team that was far from on form. At one stage they were 22-6 ahead and seemed set to win the game comfortably – but that early second-half lead diminished to a 25-20 one 15 minutes from full-time.
While the first half was a very scrappy one by the hosts as their impatience with ball in hand and rushed play saw them ruin a number of scoring opportunities, they looked dominant and a loss, or that close a contest, didn’t seem like a possibility – it was their second-half performance that gave the visitors more than enough gaps to get into the game.
And while Fleck believes that their “conditioning was good”, he said that along with poor decision-making, rustiness also played a part in their flawed performance.
“We had so many chances in that first half, our finishing let us down,” Fleck said.
“We should have won the game in the second half – we scored a very good try from the kick-off. We had put good plans in place for the kick-offs and we got good reward. I thought we were just going to kick on from there, we felt our conditioning was good. Our decision-making let us down and that let them back into the game.
“There’s a lot of rustiness within the group, which is probably to be expected with the number of injuries and changes we’ve had to make over the last couple of weeks. I guess only having two pre-season games probably affected us as well. Not only our finishing, but also our decision-making... we were looking for balls on the inside instead of trying to play a player on the outside.”
A sloppy third quarter which saw a yellow card awarded to Samuels 15 minutes from fulltime put the Stormers under heavy pressure. Inside centre Damian de Allende was forced to stand in at flank as they tried to cope with huge pressure during a series of defensive scrums towards the end of the battle.
And after a penalty try to the Jaguares in Samuels’ absence (the score was 25-20 at that stage), the Stormers managed to get out of trouble, and a powerful scrummaging effort by replacement prop JC Janse van Rensburg played a key role.