No Fourie and Malherbe, but Stormers to go ‘full metal jacket’ against Ulster

The Stormers won’t die wondering and will be going full metal jacket when they take on struggling Ulster in their United Rugby Championship (URC) clash in Belfast on Friday night.

It was a good past weekend for the Stormers as they claimed a full house of points in beating Scarlets 29-17 in Llanelli, which lifted them up into the URC top eight.

The result means that this weekend’s game against Ulster isn’t as important as it could have been, as they can afford to lose the game, with a solid four game home run to finish the pool phase of the competition still to come.

Full-strength team

But despite having that luxury, Stormers Director of Rugby John Dobson said that the team would be going all out to get the win and that they would be naming a near to full strength team, with just a few forced changes.

Flank Deon Fourie has been ruled out of the match with concussion, after suffering a nasty collision with teammate Salmaan Moerat as they attempted to make a tackle during the Scarlets game.

“Unfortunately, it’s an HIA 1, by the fact that he was knocked out. It means he’s out for the next game. So, that’s a bit of a blow for us,” explained Dobson.

“He didn’t want to come off, but the damage was done. When you snore on the field, it is worse than snoring next to your wife. You’re out. So he will miss the next game but that’s it.

Hartzenberg return

Utility back Suleiman Hartzenberg will also make his return to the match 23, with Dobson explaining he was available for the Scarlets match, but they didn’t want to bring three backline players back at the same time, as Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Damian Willemse made their comebacks.

Prop Frans Malherbe will be the other main change as he is sent home and given a rest, while Neethling Fouche heads over to take his place and join the squad.

“I think it is full metal (jacket) for this game. There’s going to be a couple of enforced changes. We definitely want to get Suleiman back on the field. We just didn’t want to have three backs who hadn’t played for many months in the same backline (against Scarlets),” said Dobson.

“So it will be the best team we can choose, less Deon. The other change is Frans Malherbe will go back to Cape Town. We agreed to rest Frans for this game, so it’s Neethling, whose wife just had a baby, that will be coming in for him.”

If the Stormers can walk away from Belfast with a win they will have a very real chance of making it into the URC top five come the end of the pool play, and even possibly top four if any of those teams slip up down the back stretch.

“If we can get a win, or a couple of points up in Belfast it really tees us up very nicely (for our home run). So full metal for Ulster. It’s not a tour that we just want to give guys caps,” admitted Dobson.