Jean de Villiers crocked

Stormers stand-in captain Jean de Villiers has injured ligaments in his hand and may be sidelined for two months.

The injury will rule the Stormers centre out for the rest of the Australasian tour, and may also preclude him from the Springboks’ three Tests against England in June.

The severity of the injury is yet to be determined, although the Stormers have confirmed that Danie Poolman has flown to Australia as a replacement.

The Stormers lost team captain Schalk Burger to a knee injury in round one, and De Villiers has led the team ever since. Andries Bekker, the vice captain, was sidelined this week with a back injury, and so news that De Villiers is unavailable means the Stormers will need to pick another captain for this week’s clash with the Reds.

Hooker Tiaan Liebenberg seems the strongest candidate, although Duane Vermeulen and Dewaldt Duvenage also form part of the Stormers’ leadership core.

Coach Allister Coetzee will also need to decide who to play at No 12 in De Villiers’ absence. Coetzee trialled Bryan Habana at No 13 in the pre-season and so he may opt to move Juan de Jongh to inside centre and bring Habana in off the wing. This would depend on Gio Aplon returning from injury to resume his place in the back three.

The Stormers team to play the Reds will be announced later on Tuesday morning.

What a plague these injuries are!. I like the idea of Habana and de jong being paired. We have Aplon, van der Heever and Poolman to play wing. Du Plessis should also be given  a shot at center at some point soon.

Simple solution, play JP du Plessis at 12

  That is a real blow.  Saffex, it is easy to replace the player with another skilled player, however one cannot replace the personality and the aura he brings to the playing field.  He will be missed by the Stormers that is for sure.

The Stormers are heading for disaster if they keep losing key senior players.  The loss of Schalk, Bekker and now Jean will affect them and may even have an effect on the Bok team as I believe these three to be contenders in the Bok team.

If they have to resort to ou Bree Bors Platarms Liebenberg, as their cappy, they could be in for a bit of problems. He always wants to moer everything in sight, and is a bit of a hot-head, IMO.

Agreed luna....big loss, but its happened and time to see how the exciting young JP du Plessis fares. Sadly I suspect Coetzee will go the conservative approach and move de Jongh to 12 and play Habana at 13 - will be a poor move, but on the cards

windpomp for the moment, and it could be a brief moment, could you please swop names with lunatic.

But yes one can't keep losing players. We are still okay in my view. Would be interesting  to see  young JP in action.

I would have said move Peter Grant to 12, but Burton Francis at 10 just does'nt do it for me. Who else have they got to fill in at 10 if Grant has to move.

I wouldn' t mind us getting Sias down here. He is not quite as good as Goosen but is nevertheless a fine flyhalf and a better bet than Grant.  Pity to see Sis sitting on the bench so much.

Yep Beeno, Sias getting waisted on the bench at the Cheetahs. We could also use him down at the Sharktank and then Lambie can move to his proper position at fullback.

As predicted its de Jongh at 12 and Habana at 13 - Coetzee has no balls