BIG READ: ‘Sacha will captain the Stormers again, just not now,’ says John Dobson

Stormers star Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu is expected to become a Springbok captain, and he will likely have to cut his teeth doing a similar job for his franchise.

It was thus a big moment when the now 24-year-old was selected as the Stormers’ new captain back in January when he was just 23.

With regular Stormers captain Salmaan Moerat, as well as Ruhan Nel and Deon Fourie out injured, Director of Rugby John Dobson decided to give Feinberg-Mngomezulu a run at the helm.

It started well enough, with a 39-26 Champions Cup home win over Leicester Tigers, but was then followed by back-to-back United Rugby Championship (URC) losses to the Sharks in Cape Town and Durban.

That saw the captaincy taken away from Feinberg-Mngomezulu and handed to JD Schickerling for their URC match against the Lions at Ellis Park, but it didn’t change their fortunes as they slipped to a third successive defeat.

“JD did okay in that game, he did what he could, he asked for a penalty try, we kept our penalty count down to seven, and he will be in the frame (to lead) again this week depending on who else is in the team,” said Dobson. The Stormers take on the Bulls at Loftus on Saturday.

“Look, I don’t think we will put the captaincy pressure back on Sacha because there was logic around that (change for the Lions game).

“If Ruhan or a Deon come into the selection frame (returning from injury) to start against the Bulls, we will take a look at that, otherwise we will continue with JD. We haven’t selected the team yet, but we definitely won’t bounce it back to Sacha.”

Too early

Dobson explained that they may have dumped the responsibility on the talented Feinberg-Mngomezulu way too early, as despite a brilliant start to his senior rugby career over the past few years, he is still getting to grips with senior rugby and the rugby spotlight.

“He is very keen to captain and we have discussed that as being in his future, and they may have done the same in the national team,” said Dobson.

“He’s the David Beckham of SA rugby now in terms of profile. He’s the X-factor guy, he’s our 10 and everyone’s 10 is always a game driver. Our 10 calls the plays, and then to load the captaincy on what was then a 23-year-old was our mistake.

“So we had a chat with him and said ‘Sacha, you just focus on two of those things for now’, and he was really respectful (about that call). I know he wants to captain, and was very accepting of the role, but in a couple of years’ time he will be an absolutely exceptional captain.”

Feinberg-Mngomezulu has pretty much captained at all levels of the game other than at Bok level, having led his school team, the Western Province U21s, the Junior Springboks and now the Stormers.

So, his talent for the job is undeniable and Dobson admits that he made a mistake by throwing him in the deep end too early, and that now it is all about waiting for the right time to unleash him in the role.

“That he’s got captaincy ability is beyond doubt, but the mistake I made is I didn’t take into account the obvious overload of the expectation around him,” explained Dobson.

“It was our mistake there to put him under too much pressure, it also changed the character of the team a little bit because the responsibility is all on one guy and I didn’t empower those around him enough. It was more our fault than his fault.”