Rested Stormers to take advantage of early travel to Glasgow

The Stormers will be looking to take full advantage of an early arrival in Scotland to make sure that they are firing on all cylinders by the time they run on the field for their United Rugby Championship (URC) quarterfinal against Glasgow Warriors on Friday night.

The Stormers left for Glasgow on Friday last week, taking advantage of the week break between the final URC pool clash and playoffs, due to the EPCR Challenge and Champions Cup finals which took place over the past weekend.

This in contrast to last season when they played a huge local derby against the Lions in their final URC pool match, before hopping on the plane to Glasgow for their quarterfinal a week later.

“It is always nice when you have a week off before you have to travel as it gives you time to train,” explained Stormers forwards coach Rito Hlungwani from Scotland on Monday.

“Obviously last week we had the Springboks going off to an alignment camp at the end of the week. But we were able to get in some good work when our Boks were there on the Monday and Tuesday, and on the Thursday and Friday we got quite a lot of work with the players who were not away at the alignment camp.

“We trained early on Friday and then flew out later in the day. We feel like this will give us enough time to prepare for the game and we do not feel rushed like we did last time.”

Business class

Another bonus was that the Stormers were able to fly business class this time round, unlike usual when they have to make long haul flights in economy to get to the UK and Europe, while they are also able to have a full regular training week ahead of the match.

“Obviously when you fly business class it is nice and comfortable so you are not nearly as tired when you get to your destination,” said Hlungwani.

“This is perfect as it gives us a full training week and that makes a massive difference. It’s also nice to be tackling the initial part of the training since arriving without having high fatigue levels like you have when you fly economy.”

Stormers utility forward Marcell Theunissen echoed the thoughts of his coach, adding that the team was feeling good and confident ahead of their massive playoff encounter.

“It was nice to be in business class, and we thank (team) manager Chippy (Solomons) for that. We feel that we have trained well but also rested well. We got here nice and early but last week we were able to work on some good stuff. I’d say it has been a great week,” said Theunissen.