Stormers ready for ‘gloves off’ battle against Ulster

The Stormers are gearing up for a slug fest and are prepared to take the “gloves off” when they collide with Ulster in their United Rugby Championship (URC) clash at the Kingspan Stadium in Belfast on Friday night (kick-off 9:35pm).

It is set to be a classic tussle as the two URC top eight contenders go head-to-head in a match that could have ramifications on whether they make the competition playoffs come the end of the pool stage.

Hosts Ulster are currently ninth on the log, while the Stormers sit eighth, and the loser will likely slip down the extremely congested log, making for a tricky climb back up over the last four games of the pool phase.

Stormers assistant coach Rito Hlungwani says the team is thus ready for an incredibly physical encounter, and that they would have to match them blow for blow if they want to emerge with the win.

“They play more of a physical game [than the other Irish teams] and have a massive pack of forwards. It’s going to be a high-impact, high-collision type of game,” said Hlungwani.

“They’re one of those teams that work really hard to get into your 22 and when they get in, they’re very patient. They want to dominate you physically, grind, grind, grind until they get results.

“Our boys always get excited for games like this. It’s going to be kind of a ‘gloves off’ type of a game where both packs of forwards want to show off their physicality and try and build some dominance in the game.”

True to style

Despite the expected physical nature of the game, the Stormers will still look to stay true to their style, and will be aiming to put on another attacking clinic.

As they showed over the past weekend, where they scored a number of stunning tries against Scarlets, and were led by a fantastic attacking performance from returning star Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, they want to do the same to Ulster.

“What’s extremely important to us is to remain true to our identity, and that’s the type of rugby we want to play. We understand that there will be times when the passes might not stick, or things might not work out, or it might look like we are trying too hard,” explained Hlungwani.

“But the one thing we don’t want to do is move away from our style of play. We are happy that it clicked a little bit last week, and we would like to see more.

“It’s not necessarily the fact that we changed anything. We are just trying to stay true to our identity. That’s how we train. We’ve seen that picture so many times, and we are just very happy that it came through during a game.”