Stormers preparing for big Marcus Smith challenge

The Stormers are gearing up for the massive challenge of stopping English maverick Marcus Smith from weaving his magic when they front up against Harlequins in their Champions Cup match-up in London on Saturday night.

England flyhalf Smith is one of the most exciting players in world rugby, and his unpredictability makes him a nightmare for defences, so the Stormers will need to be at the top of their game if they want to stand any chance of clinching an upset win over the English Premiership side.

Stormers assistant coach Norman Laker admitted that despite the team having faced Smith on two occasions, they still weren’t sure what they would get from him on any given day.

“It’s tough to know what he’s going to do if he doesn’t know himself what he’s going to do,” explained Laker at a Stormers press briefing earlier this week.

“We’ve played against him twice, in the British and Irish Lions match at the Cape Town Stadium (in 2021) and then against Harlequins two seasons ago (in the Champions Cup), and from what I’ve seen we know he’s a quality player.

“We watch him a lot at international level as well, so we know more or less what to expect of him and what we need to do to make sure that we can give ourselves a good opportunity in this game.”

Exciting players

Laker explained that with the Stormers having a number of exciting, unpredictable attacking players in their side, their players would have an idea of the kind of plays he might spark, as they would have faced that in training.

“We’re fortunate enough to have players like Warrick (Gelant), Sacha (Feinberg-Mngomezulu), Manie (Libbok) and Jean-Luc du Plessis training at the HPC (High Performance Centre) in Bellville,” said Laker.

“Those four are quality players and sometimes they also don’t know what they will do, and I think that’s good preparation for a guy like Marcus Smith.

“He can put anyone into a hole or make something out of nothing. He won’t be someone new because a lot of our players have played against him at international level as well. With his style of play, if you do put him under pressure there can be one or two mistakes.”

If the Stormers can disrupt Smith’s game that will give them the best chance of stifling the attacking flow of Harlequins, but if they don’t it will be a long night for them, especially with some difficult weather conditions also predicted.

“Marcus is obviously a big threat, if he gets going he can put a team on the front foot and they’re a good attacking side,” said Laker.

“The weather is slightly different from what it is at the moment in South Africa, so we also need to look at ourselves and how we’re going to approach the game. If Marcus is on song then the whole team gets go-forward and they’re a quality outfit.”