Stormers hoping the flu doesn’t give them the Blues

Given how the Blues managed to outlast the most conditioned team in South Africa – at altitude too – last week, it’s understandable if some fear the Stormers might have it hard in Saturday’s Super Rugby meeting at Newlands.

There’s been a lot of talk in the build-up to this match about how the Capetonians upped the tempo in the corresponding fixture in 2017 to gain an important victory and how that could be the case again.

The problem though is that a particularly nasty strain of flu has swept through the Stormers camp and has even left six members of the match 23 in doubt for the match.

Can you really keep a rampant Blues team at bay in the last 20 minutes when you’ve just got out of bed?

“We’re talking about guys that had this flu already while we were still in New Zealand,” said Stormers coach Robbie Fleck.

“They managed to challenge the Highlanders till the end, so I won’t be expecting anything less from them. We’ll never put any player in a dangerous position in terms of his health.

“If he’s not fit, he’s not fit. Then it’s somebody else’s job. I’m certainly not concerned. We’ll play the full 80 minutes. We definitely finished the stronger of the sides in our last two games in New Zealand and I’d like to think we can do the same again, regardless of who plays. We had an excellent pre-season in terms of our conditioning.”

Captain Siya Kolisi is adopting a similar mindset.

Following three consecutive defeats, all that matters now for the Stormers is to get their campaign back on track, otherwise the risk of it petering out already is high.

“There’s actually a lot of pressure on us now. We can’t hide from it,” said the Springbok stalwart.

“We’ve got to put aside the difficulties such as the illness of the players. The most frustrating thing is that we’re suffering because of our own mistakes. We’re doing all the hard yards before making an error. That’s what we need to concentrate on and we’re still positive.”

Stormers: Dillyn Leyds, JJ Engelbrecht, EW Viljoen, Damian de Allende, Raymond Rhule, Damian Willemse, Dewaldt Duvenage, Nizaam Carr, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Siya Kolisi (c), Chris van Zyl, Jan de Klerk, Wilco Louw, Ramone Samuels, Steven Kitshoff. Bench: Dean Muir, JC Janse van Rensburg, Carlu Sadie, Salmaan Moerat, Cobus Wiese, Sikhumbuzo Notshe, Justin Phillips, Craig Barry.