Stormers coach Robbie Fleck has made a number of changes ahead of the 2017 Super Rugby season, from adopting a different style of play to focusing on the team’s skills and conditioning. Now he has made another significant change: ditching the co-captaincy.
At the Stormers’ training ground in Bellville yesterday, Fleck announced that he had decided on a single captain and vice-captain, and said that the team will have a large group of leaders to support the captains. Last year, prop Frans Malherbe and centre Juan de Jongh were the team’s co-captains, with De Jongh dealing with the referee on match days.
But yesterday Fleck, pictured, confirmed that the senior players in the group preferred one captain.
“There will be a captain and a vice-captain, no co-captaincy. I did it last year because I thought we had a young leadership and I thought it was important that we build a team around the co-captaincy,” Fleck said.
“But I chatted to several senior members in the group and they felt that it was important that there was one figure head and a very strong vice-captain.”
During pre-season, before De Jongh was ruled out for 10-12 weeks with a knee ligament injury, Fleck mentioned that the Springbok centre, Malherbe, Siya Kolisi and Dillyn Leyds were all part of his leadership group.
The Stormers boss also said that he had a number of good candidates to choose from which did, of course, make the process even tougher.
“Our leadership group, with Juan de Jongh out now, consists of seven guys, and those seven will support the two leaders in the group. We are trying to build a strong leadership group that way. It was certainly a difficult process, but a good one to go through,” he said.
“I feel like there are some serious leaders who are starting to push and come through in this team, and that made that decision a little bit more difficult, but a necessary one.”
Springbok loose forward Kolisi can easily be regarded as one of those “serious leaders” in the Stormers camp, and a real contender for the role.
The between-places loose forward has what it takes to produce inspiring performances, and his level-headedness also adds to his suitability. And, of course, the prospect of more regular game time would for the back-rower be an added bonus.
Fleck also mentioned that powerhouse lock Eben Etzebeth, along with Kolisi, has “stepped up”, while also mentioning that Malherbe was still a part of the leadership group.
“These two individuals who are sitting next to me certainly have stepped up and they’ve got Springbok experience. They’ve been around some time. Frans Malherbe is still in the mix. So I feel that there’s enough leadership now to go forward and back a captain and a vice-captain,” he said.
Fleck was also confident about the changes his side have made, especially after that 60-21 beating by the Chiefs at Newlands last year, and said that he was looking forward to facing the New Zealand sides, who they didn’t face last year due to the format of the competition.
“What we started last year has now kicked on. We as a group decided that we wanted to play differently and there were glimpses of it throughout the season last year, but post the Chiefs fall out we had a re-look at ourselves. We took what was really good last year and we built on that, and now we’ve added a bit of flavour,” Fleck said.