Jaco Taute has been named at fullback for the DHL Stormers’ first home game of the 2014 Vodacom Super Rugby season.
The DHL Stormers will host the Hurricanes at DHL Newlands on Friday (kick-off 19:10), with Taute joining the starting line-up at fullback and Gio Aplon shifting across to the wing.
Media Release
Damian de Allende will move from the wing to partner skipper Jean de Villiers in the Stormers midfield, the latter shifting to the No.13 jersey and Michael van der Spuy dropping out of the matchday squad altogether.
The rest of the team is unchanged from the line-up that went down 10-34 to the Lions last Saturday, as head coach Allister Coetzee looks to maintain consistency in selection.
“I’ve learnt from this competition that you take nothing for granted, it is never easy,” said Coetzee, “you have to take your opportunities.
“The Hurricanes have four All Blacks in the backline, that is where their strength is,” added the Stormers boss on www.iamastormer.com.
“We have to make sure we come up with a good performance. The Hurricanes, over the years, have never been scared to run the ball. That is their strength – as well as creating opportunities, with their ability to off-load – and will make it challenging for our defence.”
Tickets for Friday can be purchased online at TicketPros, or from selected PostNet and Spar outlets/stores.
Patrons are also reminded of the stadium rules for DHL Newlands ahead of the new season.
DHL Stormers: 15 Jaco Taute, 14 Kobus van Wyk, 13 Jean de Villiers (Captain), 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Gio Aplon, 10 Demetri Catrakilis, 9 Louis Schreuder, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Schalk Burger, 6 Siya Kolisi, 5 Manuel Carizza, 4 Rynhardt Elstadt, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Scarra Ntubeni, 1 Steven Kitshoff
Replacements: 16 Deon Fourie, 17 Oliver Kebble, 18 Pat Cilliers, 19 Michael Rhodes, 20 Nizaam Carr, 21 Nic Groom, 22 Kurt Coleman, 23 Ryno Eksteen.
Referee: Steve Walsh
“Adam Raised a Cane” to quote the Boss. Stormers will tame the Canes. Newlands will smell the glory of the Proteas.
Last week they were telling us that Taute’s injury is more serious than initially reported, yet he has been selected. I wonder if it doesn’t smack of too much desperation and that he doesn’t play himself out of another season because they are panicking already.
It’s not as if he has done anything for the Stormers in his time there that justifies that he is the answer to their woes.
De Alende and JdV is a better center pairing than last week, but the back 3 is very suspect and the 9-10 combination is not going to give the opposition sleepless nights.
The worrying thing is that they are already rubbing their hands together in glee for when Peter Grant is coming back, surely hat is also a couple of steps back?
The backline of 2014 is very worrying from a Stormer supporter perspective, not much to get excited about, and if the forwards don’t get parity then the team will struggle.
Last week we saw that even against 6 Lion forwards, the Stormers still struggled to get accendency. Going to be a very tough game for them, the Canes are not one of the better NZ teams, but have the players to score tries. And if the Stormers fall behind again by 2 or more scores, they will be in trouble, catch up rugby qis not their strong point.
This isn’t a bad team, they just have to play like one. There are one or two players that I would replace, starting with the half-back pairing (Sorry but Dimitri isn’t the answer at 10, I would rather have Grant there and that is saying a lot as I don’t like Grant either.) They need to play Van Aswegen, either he stays fit or he doesn’t, but he’s doing no good being left out.
It’s a matter of stepping up to the plate, which i have no doubt they will do on Friday.
Problem is SB, the Canes also don’t have a bad team.
It was only after the Mvovo intercept that the Sharks had a safe lead, we saw last year at Loftus that the Bulls also got 2 intercept tries against the Canes.
They like to run and score, we don’t, so defensively we will have to be very awake and also look for the opportunity to get an intercept or 2.
They ran the Sharks closer than the scoreboard showed, although their forwards were demolished.
The Lions showed that if they can blitzkrieg the Stormers and get a lead of 12 plus, you stand a good chance of winning, Stormers struggle to score when they really need to.
Our other problem the last few years have been, if we build a lead, we let it slip and where in 2012 we hung on, last year we too often lost by small margins allowing the opposition to come back and take the game.
@ nortierd:
Indeed and I picked the Canes for a win over the Sharks, but I will still back my team this Friday. They won’t play that badly again this weekend.
Stormersboy wrote:
I picked the Canes during the Lions fiasco already
I have a feeling I won’t be picking the Stormers too often this year, things just don’t look good and when comparing them to the other sides, it just doesn’t instill confidence.
There are not many in our side that the other teams will want if compared player by player, but if we could select from the other sides, I don’t think we will keep any of our players
@ nortierd:
You recon? Still, there are at least 10 players that are leftover from a very consistent and skilled team from last year, which should pull them through.
I am looking forward to the return from injury of
Tiaan
Eben
Juan
De Kock
though, because they free up options elsewhere. We are really missing them.
@ Stormersboy:
I think Eben “makes” the team, does not complete the team, but with him there the stormers just looks more confident, he is just an exceptional player.
Stormers really missed him last year.
Tiaan in the team and Doen to 6 and not as reserve hooker, would also make a difference.
@SB
Eben will make a big difference, I agree, he is world class.
I thought Tiaan is now over his back injury?
I’m worried about Juan, he is a good player, but not really a team player in the sense that he is willing to make the hard yards then offload to someone else to score. Both he and Gio want to score by themselves too often, so we see many tries going a begging.
If he comes back, will they move De Alende back to wing again?
@ MacroBull:
Yes, given the availability of all our players the match day 22/23 would look really solid (Subs/alternates in brackets):
1. Kitshoff/ (Brok)
2. Tiaan/ (Scarra)
3. Malherbe / (Brok)
4. Eben/ (Rhodes)
5. De Kock
6. Deon/Siya
7. Schalk/(Rynard)
8. Duanne
9. Groom/(Schreuder)
10. Gary/(Grant)
11. Damian
12. JDV
13. Juan
14. Gio
15. Taute
@ Stormersboy:
Are you honestly 100% comfortable with the team like that though, especially the backline?
The Stormers have three inside centers in the backline.
@ MacroBull:
Well we can’t do any better than that at the moment, and as you know, @ MacroBull:
he game is usually set up in the forwards, which is where we are missing key personell.
But yes I am quite happy especially when compared to the current situation
There is only 1 inside centre, JDV. Juan played 12 for 1 season only and Damian has come through the ranks as a wing, even though he plays really well at 12.
That backline does look pretty ordinary.
I thought Kolbe would be first choice on wing?
The 9-10 combo is troubling, similar to the Bulls. So the outside backs won’t really be in the game to often, especially with our game plan of the 9 passing to the forwards to take the ball up.
The Bulls have a good young center combination, but with Hougaard expected to kick 90% of the ball away, they also don’t get to see any action or make any play.
It’s not as if we don’t have players, it’s just frustrating that they are not allowed to play the way they would prefer to play.
@ Stormersboy:
I suppose your right, I think for both of us we need to be happy with the personnel we got for now.
Damian fits the bill for a traditional south african 12 for me, big strong runner (though with limited distribution skills), It is almost like they decided on their 5 best back line players (10-15), and are trying to fit them all in one back line.
5 players (11-15)
@ MacroBull:
I hear you and there is some of that in the team it’s true.
@ nortierd:
Gary or peter Grant take the ball up better than any of the other options at 10, but as far as the 9 position is concerned, Groom is a better “go forward” player for me. Schreuder is slow and kicks too much.
1 @ Jinx:
Poet’s Bro, good to see you posting as Jinx… happy for you and all of us!
Stormersboy wrote:
Grant last played SR 2 years ago, he got paid to take a holiday on the bench last year. Even when he was at his best, we still fell short of taking the honors that count, so I’m sceptic that 3 years on and out of this level rugby for 2 years he will all of a sudden produce championship winning performances at 10.
He is/was an accurate goal kicker, but only at short range. We haven’t had a kicker who could convert penalties from 40 plus meters out for a while, hence we have to kick for touch and hope we win a line out ball when it counts so we can maul for a try.
I know some feel Taute can take long range penalties, but so far as a Stormer, when he was fit, we didn’t see it. Other teams accumulate 3 pointers while we struggle if it’s not in the 30m range.
@ nortierd:
I agree and I have been very critical of Grant in the past, and to say that he is a better option speaks more about my lack of confidence in Dimitri’s all-round game than anything else.
Stormersboy wrote:
It’s very frustrating being able to find so many things that can go wrong with our team and so many shortcomings, but when really trying to find positives it get difficult to think of too many.
I’m just worried that underdog, fighting spirit, desperation etc will only get you a couple of victories because at most stages class will win games. And I’m afraid that we fall a bit short when compared to the real contenders when we compare the teams position by position.
But that is our lot, so it’s up to those few top class players to really produce above average games every week
I dont think you guys should lose faith in Demetri just yet.
infact I think putting the blame on every new flyhalf every year indicates a problem elsewhere.
@ MacroBull:
Yes, there is more than 1 problem, but that 10 axis is all important.
We have struggled to get a consistent 10 that can be the answer, both for our game plan and in general.
For me that guy is Gray Van Aswegen
We had how many games this far?
aaah yes one real kak game, but only one
Let’s dish them to hell and back next week if they play like they did
Until then I give my team an opportunity to rectify and show us what they are capable off.
Still say we can beat them convincingly and the Sharks should have put 40 points on them had they used the dominance they had up front properly
Sorry but I just can’t write my team off on the level that I read here after one game
@ Gena_ZA:
And nor should you.
We’ll be back for sure.
4 @ nortierd:
Nortie,
Sharks left at least 4 tries out there. It never looked like the Canes were going to go over our line except twice when Lambie made a terrific tackle to save a certain try and so did Fransie. Other than that they never looked once like going over our line. Where as we should have scored at least another 4 tries. Had Psdt not dropped the ball close to the line there would have been a try also once he never passed when it was on. Deysel as well if he had passed that was most definitely a try there that went begging. Mvovo as well when he broke away should have gone straight and instead he cut inside that too would have been a try. Had Fransie had support when he was almost on the line and passed to a Canes player we might have scored again. We left quite a few tries out there Bud. Sharks could have had the bonus point had we not made those errors. Also when we took the scrum twice when we had two penalties felt we should have gone for corners instead and used our rolling mall we might have scored there or just taken the 3 points as Pat was kicking well on Saturday. So we had so many more opportunities than them to get more tries but we simply never took them. I felt the score should have been bigger against them than the 27/9 bud.
Anyhow I think Stormers will win this one they will have learned from last week. Stormers by 4 or so this week could be by 7. If Canes win this one then Stormers will be in trouble as they need to win their home games which I think they will this week. Stay positive bud your team will come right. They lost away game that is okay it is the home games which they must win.
@ Stormersboy:
I am obviously not an expert and all. but if I was the coach, I would sit down with my pros and cons column and just accept that the back line is not really as good as people think, and to bring them into the game more like last year with a running flyhalf was a hell of a disaster, the failure was epic. Joe p’s goal kicking was great, habana had a very good year and jdv tried his best, but jdj and aplon is the only players with flair and are exploited at super rugby, they will score two or three tries a year that are absolutely spectacular but will throw away more and it costs games like the rebels.
Accept the limitation, accept the strengths as in the defence and forwards. and hopefully goal kicking. absolutely need an 80% kicker in superrugby.
26 @ Gena_ZA:
Exactly bud, Sharks should have had many more over them had we not made some daft errors. We could have had at least 6 tries against them. Your team will beat them this week. AC will look closely at the Sharks/Canes game and will note how we beat them and Stormers will as well.
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