Smal will ‘chat’ to De Villiers about his Stormers future
WESTERN PROVINCE director of rugby Gert Smal says he will have a chat with Jean de Villiers to find out what the future holds for the former Springbok captain.
The versatile De Villiers hinted over the weekend that he will see out his last playing days abroad. So he may not be available for the Stormers in next year’s revamped Super Rugby tournament, which will have 18 teams competing for the title in 2016.
“It’s not the right time to talk to Jean because it’s a difficult time for him,” Smal told the Cape Times yesterday. “He is probably still very disappointed after what happened over the weekend.”
De Villiers and new Stormers coach Eddie Jones could be a potent combination to help the Cape franchise break their Super Rugby duck, but one senior player who is back next year is Schalk Burger, who will join the Stormers after he finishes his obligations in Japan.
The Stormers kick off their campaign with a mouth-watering clash against the Bulls at Newlands at the end of February. It’s actually the first time in a long time that the Stormers will face their arch-rivals in the opening match of the tournament, after traveling to Pretoria of Johannesburg for their opening fixtures over the last few years.
“It’s always a highly anticipated match,” Smal said. “But there are going to be a lot of those matches next year, because everybody will be excited by the new challenges ahead. The players will also have to get used to playing in new cities like Singapore, which is extremely humid.”
The six South African teams are grouped in two African pools along with the new entrants from Japan and Argentina. The existing ten Australasian teams will be divided into New Zealand and Australian pools.
The African pools play home and away against teams in their pool. They play either home or away against the teams in the other African pool, and their programme is completed by matches against all the teams from either the Australian or New Zealand conference.
The Stormers play in the Africa Conference 1, which also features the Bulls, Cheetahs and the Japanese team. They will play the Australian conference teams. Africa Conference 2 features the Kings, Lions, Sharks and the Argentinian team. They will play against the New Zealand conference.
To lessen the travel burden on South African teams, three of the Japanese entrant’s matches against SA teams will be played in Singapore.
The winners of each pool will earn automatic entry to the knockout Super Rugby Finals Series. The next highest-ranked team from the African conference will also be placed in the Finals Series along with the three next highest-ranked teams from Australasian conference.
With the Stormers only playing Australian teams in the round-robin phase, Jones could be just the ally they need to do well next year.