The Stormers' headaches with their concussed players have been solved with three of their stars available for Saturday's clash with the Ospreys in Cape Town.
Captain Salmaan Moerat, and loose-forwards Hacjivah Dayimani and Ben-Jason Dixon will all come into contention for the important match in the United Rugby Championship (URC) at DHL Stadium. They were concussed in a bruising battle with La Rochelle a couple of weeks ago, but followed the return-to-play protocols.
Assistant coach Dawie Snyman confirmed the trio was on track with their recovery and should be available for the 7.15 pm kick-off, but the experience of flanker Deon Fourie and winger Leolin Zas will be missing.
Both are on the sidelines with long-term knee injuries. The Stormers are expecting another tough encounter this weekend.
“A lot of their game revolves around their forwards,” Snyman said, about the Ospreys.
“You firstly have to worry about their game up front and how you handle that, before you can think about their backs. They are a well-coached side at the front and have a very good set piece.
“They are a very proud club. Toby (Booth, Ospreys coach) is a great guy and he is very passionate. He will definitely want to come here and do well. We will respect that.”
According to Snyman, the La Rochelle encounter brought many lessons that they will take forward into their game, but their competitiveness just shows how close they are to the top European clubs.
The Stormers have to pick themselves up after that narrow defeat against the former Champions Cup winners and have to win all of their final five games in the URC to come into contention for a home playoff.
Gaining that winning momentum again starts against their Welsh visitors. They had a full week of no rugby with no overseas traveling and should be ready for whatever is thrown at them.
"It’s still a process of learning in the different tournaments. We want to feature in all of them and be successful. We wanted to play a quarter-final and took that loss against La Rochelle very personally. They are one of the top teams in Europe.
“ We were very close.
“If that meant we had to struggle against Ospreys (after playing a Champions Cup quarter-final), then so be it. But then we could’ve tested our depth. We are learning from it, and we are finding ways to do good in both competitions. That is something important to us.”
The result against La Rochelle was disappointing, but the boxes the Stormers ticked pleased their coaches. Now, they want to continue on that, especially the first-half performance, and learn from it.
Snyman added that they would take plenty of confidence from the match and the fact that they kept the French giants honest.
“We were up by 13-0 and played some good rugby in the first half. But there were moments when we gave the momentum back to them. And top teams can keep that momentum and put the pressure on you to fight back and score points.
“Lessons were learned but we know we can run with the big dogs. It doesn’t matter if it’s at home or away. We learned a lot from the loss,” he said.