The young sensation known as Markus Muller is set to add to the DHL Stormers’ centre stocks from this weekend, and the director of rugby John Dobson would not be selecting him into the match day squad for the Glasgow game if he did not think he was ready. Given 18-year-old Muller’s pedigree, if he is ready he might well stay in the team going forward.
Should he go well against Glasgow, and he certainly has the pedigree to do so, he will add to the Stormers’ options at centre.
However, when Dobson left the post-match press conference after last week’s disappointing defeat to Connacht in the Stormers’ round 15 Vodacom URC match he said something intriguing - “I have some big selection decisions to make this week, maybe not so much at forward, but at the back.”
SCHICKERLING SIDELINED
There is a lock crisis that is starting to develop, with JD Schickerling, the Stormers’ star fit lock until now, understood to have sustained an injury that will keep him out not only of Saturday’s top of the log round 16 clash with Glasgow Warriors but for the next six months.
Ruben van Heerden, fit to play Glasgow, will head to Montpellier at the end of the season while the currently injured Salmaan Moerat is off to another French club, La Rochelle.
But Dobson is nonetheless right that he doesn’t have too many things to think about at forward. He has a long list of excellent props and the depth there is underlined by the fact that Vernon Matongo, so impressive since making his debut last season, has not been in the match day 23 for the past few games.
There’s a queue at tighthead that some of the other franchises might like to draw on should Frans Malherbe play on next year, when Wilco Louw is set to return to further bolster the Stormers’ riches in that position.
THERE’S BEEN SOMETHING MISSING AT THE BACK
But there has been something missing at the back since the departure of Manie Libbok’s incomparable X-factor to Japan, and injuries earlier in the season saw Wandisile Simelane, normally a centre, moonlighting at fullback. He did well in the position but the former Lions and Bulls player is primarily a centre.
It sounds like a weird thing to say about the Stormers, but perhaps the area where there is the biggest question mark at the moment is wing.
Dylan Maart, who is heading to the Bulls next season, hasn’t quite kicked on from his impressive start to his Stormers career after moving from Griquas, and the injury to Seabelo Senatla has left the Stormers short of the break out strike power that they have when the former Blitzbok star is present.
The decision to play Damian Willemse at wing therefore wasn’t quite as questionable a decision as many are viewing it, and no-one can argue that the Stormers didn’t win the aerial battle in the first half of the Connacht game. Willemse has told the Cape media that he has quite enjoyed getting used to a new position.
Should he go well against Glasgow, and he certainly has the pedigree to do so, he will add to the Stormers’ options at centre.
“It’s been a very good challenge. It’s been a great addition to the team. I felt it helped us a lot with our adaptability to our kicking and how we approach other teams’ kicking games,” said Willemse.
“I guess it’s another skill set that I’ve developed over the past few weeks with the coaches’ help. It’s been going well and I’ve been enjoying it.”
It will no doubt please Bok coach Rassie Erasmus too, but there is a strong argument for Willemse to move either back to fullback, where Warrick Gelant is struggling for consistency, or into the midfield. He does have more of an influence on a game from those positions.
He is a world class inside centre when he stays there and the last time Glasgow, and their rated Scotland inside centre and captain Sione Tuipoluto came to the Cape, Willemse played against him as the Stormers No 12.
He’d probably prefer to forget that he got injured in the first half of that game, which was played in Stellenbosch in October 2024, and hardly played again that season, with Willemse’s departure towards the end of the first half after having been involved in a try costing the Stormers in a game they ended up losing.
JURIE AND SACHA HAVE BEEN GOOD IN 10/12 AXIS IN THE PAST
It is unlikely that Muller will start in his first game and is more likely to play off the bench, so Willemse returning to the inside centre position, which is where he plays more often than he does at fullback for the Stormers, is a possibility for the Warriors game.
Providing Jurie Matthee is fit, which Dobson said he expected him to be after initially the injury that kept him from playing Connacht was slated to keep him sidelined for three weeks, the Stormers do have another option to wear No 12 that will bring what Willemse does when he plays there while also releasing Willemse to play the position he plays for the Boks - Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.
Until last season most of Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s games for the Stormers were at inside centre, outside Libbok. Perhaps his most notable early performance for the Stormers though came at Kings Park in February 2024, when he played outside Matthee in the key 10/12 decision making axis against the Sharks in Durban.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu won the official man of the match award that day for his creativity at inside centre but Matthee wouldn’t have been far behind him. Matthee has in fact been in the Stormers No 10 in some of their most notable victories this year and while no-one would quibble with Sacha being seen as the first choice No 10, Matthee is a good enough player to expect to play more than he does.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu moving occasionally to centre, which he does later in games when Matthee is a substitute coming on, could add to the potency of the Stormers’ game by enabling them to have all their star players on the field at the same time.
There is a chance that Senatla will be fit this week but the other option at wing would be Suleiman Hartzenberg, who played for the Stormers XXIII last week. Another position where a call should be made is scrumhalf, where Imad Khan impresses every time he gets onto the field for the Stormers as a substitute.
No-one will argue he should play ahead of Cobus Reinach, and even Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who is close to Khan as they were at school together, made it clear that shouldn’t happen now, but the former Bishops player should probably play as the impact scrumhalf ahead of Stefan Ungerer, who does remain a good horses for courses selection (for wet weather).
The Stormers team for the Glasgow game will be announced on Friday.