The Stormers have named a close to full strength team for their Champions Cup encounter against La Rochelle.
Stormers Director of Rugby John Dobson admitted that his frontline players would have to put in a big shift and produce a top performance in their Champions Cup clash against French giants La Rochelle at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Gqeberha on Saturday afternoon (kick-off 3pm).
The Stormers have had a mightily impressive start to their season, winning all seven games so far, six in the United Rugby Championship (URC) to top the log, and got their Champions Cup campaign off to a solid start with a 26-17 win over Aviron Bayonnais in France over the past weekend.
But what has been the most remarkable about their season so far, is that the Stormers have largely been doing it without their best, who have been on Springbok duty, while they also have suffered a few injuries to key players as well.
So having their top stars back, and having named a close to full-strength team for their game against former double Champions Cup champs La Rochelle, the players coming in will have quite a bit of pressure on them to keep up the good work done by the extended squad so far.
It’s a star studded line-up for the Stormers featuring Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Cobus Reinach, Evan Roos, Salmaan Moerat, Ben-Jason Dixon and Warrick Gelant amongst others, that will be eager to show why they have star billing.
Big blow
“It would be quite a blow to us if we do not get things right on Saturday,” admitted Dobson at Wednesday’s team announcement press conference.
“There is a lot of hype around us, and we can’t believe that. We must stick to our processes, as terrible as the cliche is, and train as hard as we have been. There are still some things that we are not doing properly, we looked at a video this morning.
“We also can’t relax and think our resilience will bail us out of trouble. We can’t rely on it forever, and one day it won’t work. This is a big challenge. We think we have the squad to get out of our group, and from here, you must win home games to do that.”
Last season the Stormers produced a dismal Champions Cup campaign, winning just one match, and were duly completely dumped out of the EPCR competition after the pool stage.
This time around they want a home playoff, and thanks to their good start against Bayonne, they know another good win over La Rochelle will put them right on track to achieve that.
They have already played the French side twice in the competition, both being extremely tight contests, with the Stormers winning one 21-20, and La Rochelle the other 22-21, so another thrilling match could be on the cards, especially if they have brought a full-strength squad for the game.
“We are preparing for their full mettle team, but we are hearing conflicting stories of who is here. We’ve prepared for the best of La Rochelle,” said Dobson.
