Cape Town - Stormers captain Duane Vermeulen has warned the Cheetahs to prepare Bloemfontein’s battle stations for “war”.
The Stormers will gust on to the Highveld with the goal of hooking their fifth win against a South African conference opponent, and thus extending their current hot streak to four wins.
Most of the Cheetahs players will feel like they have bigger fish to fry.
Seven Cheetahs were invited to attend Springbok training camps this month. Five players in that contingent were not included in Naka Drotske’s match-day squad for Saturday, which means that the Stormers are set to face at least 21 Cheetahs who have reason to feel rejected.
The 2015 World Cup kicks off in England in September. The Cheetahs back-row combination of Tienie Burger, Boom Prinsloo and Willie Britz are so far off Heyneke Meyer’s radar that they weren’t deemed good enough to make the cut in a 59-man group of exclusively locally-based players for the Bok workshops.
Vermeulen knows what it’s like to be overlooked. It took him eight seasons on a journey from Nelspruit, through Bloemfontein and then on to Cape Town, to arrive at the national setup.
“That’s a big motivation,” said the Stormers skipper. “Until that final Bok squad gets announced, it’s going to be war out there.
“The guys know that (the Bok squad) is open for everyone. Anyone can still get called up to the Bok squad and get into the mix, and we’re playing Super Rugby which is a high-risk game.
“It’ll be a physical battle with the Cheetahs loose forwards, but we’re looking forward to it – we’ve also got a couple of guys who want to get into that final Bok squad, so it’s a major game.”
Lood de Jager, Teboho Mohoje, Heinrich Brüssow and Willie le Roux are injured and therefore unavailable for the derby, while winger Cornal Hendricks has been rested in line with Saru’s pre-World Cup resting programme, which has also accounted for Stormers enforcer Eben Etzebeth’s absence this weekend.
Without the heavy-handed lock backing him up, Vermeulen will again be primarily responsible for adding the steely edge to a Stormers plan that relies heavily on winning the collisions.
Because the plan calls for maximum physical intensity, the SA conference leaders have struggled to sustain an 80-minute performance in nine of 10 matches this season. Strong starts have been followed up with flat finishes, or second-half surges have followed slow starts.
The Cheetahs do not have the personnel to beat opponents who take a long-term view to victory. Conversely, they thrive against teams who try to win the game in the first, or final, quarter.
“We just want to stick to our plan,” said Vermeulen. “If you score early you also kind of get loose, so you want to stick to your structures. We saw what happened last week – the Lions scored two quick tries and the Cheetahs just replied with two quick tries.
“Even if they score a quick runaway try in the beginning, when we get into their half we want to convert that into points.”
That patience was missing during last week’s 15-13 win against the Bulls at Newlands as the Stormers coughed up the ball in the red zone – one such turnover sparked a long-range counter-strike capped off by Bulls wing Bjorn Basson.
The Bulls are only one point behind the Stormers on the overall standings, and there’s a chance they could leapfrog the Cape side if they produce a bonus-point win against the Lions at Loftus Versfeld later tonight.
Vermeulen, who knows the perils of chasing tries against a side like the Cheetahs, is only focused on scoring more points than the home team.
“Every derby is a big game. We want to end top of our conference and this is just another game that’s in our way.
“It’s going to be tough... it’ll be a big match, a tough clash up front and two backlines that really want to run the ball.
“But we just want to keep going with our winning ways. If that means it’s a four-pointer, we’ll take it. We just want to play winning rugby.”
CHEETAHS:15 Clayton Blommetjies, 14 Rayno Benjamin, 13 Francois Venter, 12 Michael van der Spuy, 11 Sergeal Petersen, 10 Joe Pietersen, 9 Sarel Pretorius, 8 Willie Britz, 7 Boom Prinsloo, 6 Tienie Burger, 5 Francois Uys (captain), 4 Carl Wegner, 3 Coenie Oosthuizen/Maks van Dyk, 2 Torsten van Jaarsveld, 1 Caylib Oosthuizen. Replacements: 16 Stephan Coetzee, 17 Dolph Botha, 18 Maks van Dyk/Ewald van der Westhuizen, 19 Steven Sykes, 20 Carel Greeff, 21 Tian Meyer, 22 Francois Brummer, 23 Danie Dames.
STORMERS:15 Cheslin Kolbe, 14 Johnny Kotze, 13 Juan de Jongh, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Dillyn Leyds, 10 Demetri Catrakilis, 9 Nic Groom, 8 Duane Vermeulen (captain), 7 Siya Kolisi, 6 Schalk Burger, 5 Ruan Botha, 4 Jean Kleyn, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Bongi Mbonambi, 1 Oli Kebble. Replacements: 16 Scarra Ntubeni, 17 Alistair Vermaak, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 Manuel Carizza, 20 Nizaam Carr, 21 Louis Schreuder, 22 Kurt Coleman, 23 Huw Jones.
Kick-off:5.05pm
Venue: Free State Stadium, Bloemfontein
Referee: Craig Joubert
Weekend Argus