De Allende’s injury takes shine off Stormers’ win

THE Stormers appear to have paid a heavy price for their excellent 37-24 win over the Bulls at Newlands on Saturday with the news that centre Damian de Allende faces a lengthy spell out of the game.

De Allende‚ who was in cracking form for the 63 minutes he was on the field making 84m with the ball in hand and eight tackles‚ suffered an ankle injury in the second half of the Super Rugby opener.

Coach Robbie Fleck looked unhappy afterwards‚ despite the positive result and performance because of De Allende’s injury.

Fleck said he’d wait until De Allende underwent a full scan on the injury to make a definitive statement about how long the Bok centre would be out.

But the initial prognosis was “not good”.

The Stormers have already lost Juan de Jongh for the bulk of the season due to a knee injury and with Huw Jones still on duty with Scotland in the Six Nations‚ they are thin on the ground when it comes to experienced midfield cover.

“I don’t want to get into it until we know the extent of Damian’s injury, but from the initial news we received‚ it does not look good‚” Fleck said.

Former junior star EW Viljoen made his Super Rugby debut on Saturday and produced a strong perfo highlighting his pace‚ pow- er and deft skills.

But De Allende was a central figure on two of the Stormers’ three first half tries and was a constant threat in terms of taking the ball over the advantage line against a strong defensive unit.

Jones returns to South Africa this week with the Six Nations enjoying a bye weekend‚ so he is likely to be drafted into the Stormers squad for their match against the Jaguares at Newlands next Saturday.

“Injuries are part of the game but Huw Jones will join us for the next match before he heads back [to re-join Scotland]‚” Fleck said.

“E W had a good game and he made some excellent decisions in the wide channel. He stands up well on attack‚ looks for the offload and was outstanding on defence. With Damian being out‚ he will now play a big role for us during the campaign.”

The Stormers raced into a 24-0 halftime lead with some of the most clinical play from the team in years.

But the Bulls rallied after the break‚ outscoring the Stormers 24-13 in the second half while also scoring four tries – the last of which came after the final hooter.

Fleck praised his team but was also critical of their second-half lapse.

“I was very happy with the first-half performance and certain moments in the second half‚” Fleck said.

“The stuff that we worked hard on in the pre-season, came though‚ but there were soft moments‚ which are things we can fix quite quickly.

“Maybe it was a little bit of overenthusiasm that got the better of us but it’s small things.

“I am glad it [the mistakes] happened because we need to continue working hard as it’s the start of a long competition. Come Monday [today], we will be honest in our assessment but I told the guys to savour the moment.”

The Stormers set piece‚ particularly the scrum‚ was dominant‚ which didn’t surprise Fleck at all.

“We work incredibly hard at out set piece, so I’m not surprised about how well it went‚” Fleck added.

“We pride ourselves on the set pieces and we scrummed well. We lost one or two lineouts, but I am still happy.

“I thought our line speed on defence was very good – it’s something that is new to us. We are going to make mistakes, but overall‚ there were stages where we were knocking them back. This is probably the biggest pack in the competition and I felt our guys got stuck in defensively.

“Our breakdown was good on both defence and attack. We got good‚ clean ball on attack and put them under pressure on defence. If you want to beat the New Zealand teams and the likes of the Lions‚ you have to be brutal at the breakdowns.

“It is something we are learning and I feel that we are getting better at it,” Fleck concluded.