Ex Supersport
After losing to the Waratahs in their opening tour match there would be good reason for the DHL Stormers to be crossing the Tasman Sea for a meeting with a long-standing nemesis filled with trepidation, but their assistant coach Paul Feeney says that is not the case.
The former Blues skills coach says that the Stormers will be visiting Christchurch, the venue where last year the Crusaders put more than 50 points past them (57-24), without any fear. Instead they will be using the match against the tournament champions to show what they have learned and how much they have improved since that big reverse 10 months ago.
“Look when a team puts 43 points past the Chiefs, like they did last Saturday, then you know you are up against a pretty awesome combination and it is a massive challenge,” said Feeney.(The score flattered the wee crusties!)
“But are we fearful, are we scared? No, we definitely aren’t fearful. On the contrary, we are excited about this opportunity to test ourselves against the best team in the competition. If you do well against them, then you really do boost your own confidence. We do remember last year and what happened then, but we also know where we went wrong and Saturday will be an interesting test for our progress since then.”
What Feeney says makes sense. The one thing that the Waratahs defeat did do was ensure that the Stormers will be going to Christchurch without any expectation. At least there won’t be any expectation from the fans and the media back home.
That is different from last year, when the Stormers went to Christchurch as one of the form teams in the competition. They were just off a defeat to the Emirates Lions at Newlands on Easter Saturday, but that was their first loss of the year. They’d gone six games before that without losing. So while the Lions game had been a setback, there was still some expectation.
This time, after what happened last year and what happened last week, the Stormers will be rank underdogs against a side that has grown it’s reputation considerably since last April and is outright favourite to retain the trophy they won by beating the Lions in last year’s Johannesburg final.
“One thing that we are pleased about is that we are playing them early in the season,” said Feeney.
“At this time of the year there is sometimes a bit of rust and a team hasn’t picked up momentum yet. They did win very well last week, but in the early part of the season there can be inconsistency.”
The Stormers are still waiting on the fitness of flyhalf Michael Willemse, who hobbled off with a haematoma to a quad muscle against the Waratahs. There are not too many other injury problems to a squad that has already been ravaged by injury in the early season.
Biggest losses right now to injury are Eben the Great and Jean-Luc du Plessis. I also believe JJ should be on the wing but we shall see.
