The former Bok flyhalf and that pistol boot of his has of course been a factor in the Stormers’ preparations for the north-south derby
The scrum is going to be a way tougher challenge this week.
So says Stormers coach John Dobson ahead of his team’s Super Rugby meeting with the Bulls at Newlands on Saturday (5.15pm kick-off).
The Stormers were a pleasing sight at the pack-down against the Hurricanes in their opener, something that was kind of to be expected given the Springbok presence their forward pack possesses.
Anything but easy
But the Bulls can also bring it at scrum time, although the Stormers have more than enough power in both their starting front-row and the back-up they have on the bench to take the Bulls on. Even so, Dobson is expecting this one to be anything but easy.
“Trevor Nyakane and Lizo Gqoboka against Kitsie (Steven Kitshoff) and Frans (Malherbe), if those two start for us I think there’ll be a lot of pride at stake there,” Dobson said.
“They’re all great props. We’ve got a plan, but I think it’ll be a lot tighter for us at scrum time than it was last week. We don’t expect quite the same return against the Bulls as we got against the Hurricanes. I think it’s going to be harder work for us this week.
“It won’t be quite the forward- dominated thing it was last week. Juandré Kruger is a tough competitor and a very good maul defender. We expect a much tighter forward battle so (we) will have to adjust.”
The scrummaging performance is one thing, but then there’s also the Morné-Steyn factor.
The former Bok flyhalf and that pistol boot of his has of course been a factor in the Stormers’ preparations for the north-south derby.
Steyn controlled the game well for the Bulls last week, and his kicking game is something the Sharks just couldn’t nullify.
“The way Morné can kick distance and contestables is a real threat,” Dobson said.
“You would have seen during training, that’s the whole thing we’ve been prepping for, the distance kicks. As Stormers and Western Province we sometimes get sucked in trying to run too much of that back because we get seduced by what we see as a chase line a little bit further off and we’ve got steppers who wanna have a go, and I think we can’t get seduced into that this week. We have to be a bit more pragmatic about how we attack.
“What was nice last week was our dominance in territory and that’s what we need to do.”
