Stormers youngsters ‘put their hands up’ for selection
THE Stormers kicked off their pre-season schedule on a positive note in Wellington on Saturday when a young and fairly inexperienced team delivered a convincing 45-17 win over the Boland Cavaliers.
The game, which formed part of a four match pre-season programme, will give coach Allister Coetzee a better understanding of what his core group will look like ahead of the gruelling Super Rugby season which kicks off next month.
With most of the senior players on the sidelines, the match allowed the Stormers’ “second-string” group to put up their hands in the hopes of cementing a place in the season’s squad.
With that said, the opportu- nity definitely proved to be fruitful for a handful of players such as Nizaam Carr, Eben Etzebeth, JP du Plessis and even veteran scrumhalf Bolla Conradie.
The former Springbok No 9 showed a glimpses of his old self as he was instrumental around the rucks and mauls, delivering quick ball as well as scoring a beautiful try in the first half after breaking the Boland defence.
Du Plessis, who represented the Melbourne Rebels last year, continuously broke the Boland defence with his aggressive approach, while Carr made his presence felt with his silky skills around the fringes.
The shadow team showed promise throughout the match as defence and attack worked well, but Stormers forwards coach Matthew Proudfoot said the main focus of the team this year was to develop a solid tight five as this was the one department in which the Stormers have been found wanting in recent seasons.
“We are putting a lot of focus on our tight five this year, working on our scrums, looking at aspects such as height posture in the scrum,” Proudfoot said after the match.
“We need to dominate engagements, and perfect that to an international standard.”
The lack of a dominant tight five – on par with that of the Bulls, Sharks and Crusaders – has been the glaring weakness in the Western Province/ Stormers set-up which has reached a number of play-off matches in recent seasons and it is one the WP brainstrust are eager to rectify.
Captain De Kock Steenkamp said he was quite pleased with the way youngsters and other new signings played and agreed that there is definitely promise in this young group of players.
“I’m quite happy with the way the guys played, this is an opportunity for the youngsters to put their hands up and the guys definitely did that today. The season is long and so there will be chances for these guys to represent the team,” he said.
“I was particularly impressed with Nizaam Carr, he was ever present around the ball and showed an urgency to go forward.”
“It was important to start off the year with a win because the idea is to build a winning culture,” said skipper Steenkamp.
“The next step would be to build on this performance when we come up against the Lions. It’s all about working harder over the next few weeks.”
Conradie, who captained the Boland Cavaliers to the Currie Cup First Division championship last season, said: “I’m at a stage where I play for fun, but I’m working hard by training twice a day,”
“I am prepared for a good pre-season and nobody knows what will happen, as long as I keep working hard.”
The Stormers continue their pre-season programme when they take on the Lions at Newlands on Friday in the annual pre-season warm-up series which this year also features the Cheetahs.