Bloody Stormers!

I Am A STORMER - no questions asked... But geez they know how to throw games away sometimes!

Last night the guys snuck in 27-24 against the Reds in the Super 14 and I got the impression that if the game had gone on for another 5 minutes they would have lost it - this after having been up 27-10 and the Reds looking down and out.

Last week against the Sharks they also had a handy lead and lost it - apparently because Jean Devilliers was stretchered off the field. This time there was no key player lost so what was the excuse?!

My opinion - They just played like it was a game of wild schoolboy rugby and the Reds mopped it up and Quade Cooper thought Christmas had come early.

Missing out on that bonus point was B A D.

I appreciate that the Stormers like a running game of rugby, but you A) have to have the ball, B) you have to have the territory to play such a game. If you have neither it's pretty tough to consistently stay in the game... and it is not like the Reds did anything special to secure territory and possession - they just waited for the ball to be given to them.

• That hospital pass from Ricky Januarie to Andries Bekker in the first minute which the lock then tried to clear (which lead to the first Reds try) was the way the Stormers continued to play throughout the game.
• Schalk Brits (pictured) thinks he's some kind of backline player... Schalk - like Rassie has shown with Nick Koster - if he thinks you are a backline player, he will reinvent you... how about playing as a hooker please? I'm not a Brits fan - I rate hookers who can find their jumpers and do the basics right not on how many goose stepping, upside down flip passes they can deliver
• A perfect example was a chip and chase from Januarie after a lineout in the first half. The two chasers on to the ball - Brits and Naqelevuki. The Fijian ends up behind Brits - who is one of the shortest guys on the field - and the ball gets lost forward and the Reds make up about 10 - 15m when the
  
• When Januarie went off and Conradie came on, I don't think we got a single ball out of the scrums... Conradie needs to get up to game speed
• Brian Mujati is not a scrumhalf! Nor is Sireli Naqelevuki. Nor is Bekker, nor is Fondse - it is the guy that wears the number 9 jersey dammit...

But a win is a win and we're in the middle of the table after the first two games. The bonus point would have been useful though.

On the positives:

• Sireli Naqelevuki is back in the side and he brings something different to the backline
• Love or hate him - Luke Watson brought some value in with his performance
• Jean Devilliers is fit
• Peter Grant looks useful at flyhalf
• We have our first win of the season

Lots of work to do going forward though....

Stormers reviewed

6 days until the Super 14 kicks off and South African sides have finally announced their teams.

Rugby Strategist has taken a look at the sides and tried to identify some key players who will shape the Super 14 campaigns for SA:

STORMERS:
Andries Bekker, Wikus Blaauw, Gcobani Bobo, Schalk Brits, Schalk Burger, Tonderai Chavhanga, Bolla Conradie, Jean de Villiers, Dylan des Fountain, Dewaldt Duvenhage, Schalk Ferreira, Adriaan Fondse, Deon Fourie, Peter Grant, Conrad Jantjes, Ricky Januarie, Francois Louw, JD Moller, Brian Mujati, Pieter Myburgh, Sireli Naqelevuki, Morgan Newman, Luke Watson, Percy
Montgomery, Nick Koster, JC Kritzinger, Hilton Lobberts, Joe Pietersen, AJ Venter, Duanne Vermeulen.

Experienced flyhalf Willem De Waal was not considered due to injury as was Brock Harris the prop.

Big performances are obviously expected of Schalk Burger and Jean de Villiers but the real testing points for the Stormers will be Peter Grant and flyhalf and in the front row where they have been given grief in some of the warm up games.

I'm a Stormers supporter so I'll obviously be biased in their favour but its a decent looking side with the ability to beat almost anybody on their day.

The makeup of the backline is going to be interesting to watch with Nick Koster being reinvented as a wing and Sireli Naqelevuki having to deliver the goods as the human battering ram.

Nick Koster and the positional debate

I see an interesting debate has emerged on Keo.co.za around the management of WP and Stormers loose forward Nick Koster and I thought it might be interesting to get a bit of feedback from other rugby coaches...

The topic is moving a player out of their favoured position to

A) Make space to accommodate their skills
B) Remoulding of a player

For those who don't know, Koster is a highly rated young loose forward. He made a big impact in the limited time he hit the turf for WP in 2008 and a lot is being expected of him in the Super 14 and Currie Cup this year.

The debate now comes up in that Stormers coach Rassie Erasmus has decided to run Koster on the wing during training and people are questioning whether he should be left to mature as a loosie or play a dual role of loose forward and wing.

Kabamba Floors and Ruan Pienaar are two other South African players who have been shuffled around their respective sides with mixed success in the last few years.

Floors played the odd game at wing while being a traditional loose forward while Pienaar was such a good natural ball player that he was shifted around the Sharks (and Springbok) backlines as a wing, scrumhalf, flyhalf and fullback.

The question is - is the player being handicapped by being played out of a position or is he simply a new breed of player being able to move seamlessly between the forward group and the backline?