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Young Frans Malherbe who will have the biggest say over whether the Stormers blow hot or cold this season.

Much has been made of Springbok centre Jaque Fourie’s move to Japan and the potential impact of speedy new signings Joe Pietersen and Gerhard van den Heever, but it is young Frans Malherbe who will have the biggest say over whether the Stormers blow hot or cold this season.

The Stormers are generally regarded as perennial underachievers because they almost always assemble one of the competition’s most exciting backlines, but have yet to win any silverware.

An unconvincing tight five has been the common denominator of Stormers teams of late, and the one missing component from the current crop is a franchise scrum anchor.

Malherbe is positioned to play a key role in addressing this shortcoming, and how well the 20-year-old tighthead prop fares in just his second season of Super Rugby will have far-reaching effects for Allister Coetzee’s team.

The Paarl Boys prodigy has just five Super 15 appearances off the bench and one Currie Cup start to his name, but he showed enough promise in 2011 to set tongues wagging.

Malherbe is a powerful scrummager who makes a weighty contribution in the tight-loose and, despite his relative youth, he thwarted the best efforts of grizzled looseheads to unsettle him last year.

The durable Brok Harris has been played into the ground over the past two seasons – missing just one match for the Stormers and Western Province combined since 2010 – but excellent mobility and a high work rate does not compensate for his less-than-dominant scrumming prowess.

The importance of controlling the set piece remains unchanged, even though there has been a steady decline in the number of scrums and lineouts in recent seasons.

Andries Bekker provides the Stormers with a potent lineout, but the team’s soft underbelly was exposed by the Crusaders at Newlands when the Kiwis rolled over them at scrum time in the semifinal.

The addition of long-time Sharks prop Deon Carstens, 32, has added experience to a relatively young group of front row forwards, but Malherbe remains the only tighthead in the squad who appears capable of countering the advance of the Crusaders pack.

Coetzee has an abundance of game breakers and reliable tactical decision makers and, given quality possession, the Stormers will contend for the title this year.

In this regard, Malherbe’s emergence as an immovable object is critical to laying the platform for success.