The Stormers may have fallen short against the All Blacks, but their biggest concern could be the injury toll from a memorable night in Cape Town.
John Dobson confirmed that scrumhalves Imad Khan and Dewaldt Duvenage both suffered injuries during the Stormers’ 38-21 defeat to the All Blacks in Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series opener on Friday night.
“Immy’s got a reasonably serious knee injury, Dewaldt broke his arm,” said Dobson.
REPORT: All Blacks battle past Stormers
Khan would likely have been in pole position to don the Stormers’ No 9 jersey for the initial rounds of the new Vodacom URC season, in the absence of Springbok Cobus Reinach. The Cape side do however have options in the Currie Cup, who could be called upon if required.
“We’ve got two great scrum halves in the Currie Cup in Steph Ungerer and Ezekiel Ngobeni and then, if we have to look, we have to look,” said Dobson.
“You don’t count on two going down in one game and at some stage Cobus Reinach will come back.”
The injuries took some of the gloss off what Dobson described as an enormously encouraging performance from a Stormers side that hadn’t played a competitive match since May.
“There’s enormous pride in our change room. I can’t fault anything about the team and it was a remarkable effort,” he said.
“We trained for three weeks and that first contact was the first bit of contact since Dublin [in the URC semi-final against Leinster]. 65 minutes, we were going toe-to-toe. We knew and we said in the first five or 10 minutes, our heads would ring a bit. I’m super proud of them and hope they did the occasion justice.”
ALSO: Nonu to tackle All Blacks
One of the biggest positives was the performance of 20-year-old flyhalf Yaqeen Ahmed, who was handed his Stormers debut against the All Blacks.
Dobson was impressed by the young playmaker’s composure on one of the biggest stages in rugby.
“Really composed, took the ball on and wasn’t daunted by the occasion,” said Dobson.
“The guy’s got real big match temperament, and in the change rooms he was sitting swapping jerseys with Beauden Barrett. And that’s the beauty of this sort of occasion.”
Photo: Roger Sedres/Gallo Images
The post All Blacks battle comes at heavy cost for Stormers appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
The Stormers may have fallen short against the All Blacks, but their biggest concern could be the injury toll from a memorable night in Cape Town.
The post All Blacks battle comes at heavy cost for Stormers appeared first on SA Rugby magazine. Read More
