Lions v Stormers: Deon Fourie on 3pm showdown with Jaco Kriel

Stormers flank Deon Fourie was immense against the Sharks this past weekend and walked away with the player-of-the-match award, and he is gearing up for another fierce battle against the Lions, particularly at the breakdown with fellow loosie Jaco Kriel, when the teams meet in a United Rugby Championship match at Ellis Park on Saturday.

“It is going to be tough, three o’ clock on a summer’s day in Johannesburg at altitude is always difficult, but the guys have all gone through it before so we know what to expect,” said Fourie.

“He (Kriel) is an old veteran as well. He has also played overseas and was a Springbok, but soon as you go into one on one battles you go off program. But we will try to have a bit more focus on him because he is good on the ground and carries hard.”

Fourie was also cheekily asked about his Springbok ambitions, with him being one of the form flankers playing in the country at the moment, but being at the ripe old age of 35 that seems unlikely.

“You always have that ambition to play for the Boks, but I am just looking to take it game by game now. There are a hell of a lot of good flankers in the country and overseas, so my focus is just on bringing what I can to the Stormers.

“Whatever happens will happen. I am 35, so we will see what happens.”

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Despite being the form South African team in the URC at the moment the Stormers are still focused on improving and the Lions are their next step in the process.

The Cape Town side have shot to the top of the SA Shield log after going on an unbeaten run in their recent local derbies and are eyeing up another scalp in the Lions.

There will also be a bit of revenge in mind for the visitors after they were soundly beaten at home by the Lions in their URC clash in early December.

“We are in good form, I thought we did pretty well this past weekend against the Sharks. All of the things we planned to do we pretty much did,” admitted Stormers assistant coach Rito Hlungwani.

“We did leave a number of points on the table so that is a work on for us to try and finish better. But the main thing is we want to get better every week, that’s the big focus.

“We want to keep doing the things that we have done well and want to fix the things that we need to improve. So we are constantly looking for improvement every week, regardless of who we are facing, we just want to get better.”