DHL Stormers' Ali Vermaak made his return which couldn’t come at a better time, with fellow loosehead props Sti Sithole, Steven Kitshoff and Lizo Gqobokaagainst still injured, against the Hollywoodbets Sharks.
Stormers' forwards coach Rito Hlungwani had huge praise for Vermaak's performance against the Sharks.
“I wouldn’t want to discuss the calls much but all I’ll say is in a normal scrum the tighthead side doesn’t usually go forward as fast as the loosehead."
“Ali was quite powerful on the left. So from a coach point of view, we’re quite happy with that picture, we’re quite happy with how Ali Vermaak performed coming back," said Hlungwani
“He hasn’t played in a long time and we thought he looked in good shape, played against two Springboks, we thought he operated well."
“We thought Joseph Dweba was good right in the middle and Neethling Fouché as well. The guys really performed well and the power they got from the back-five.”
"He’s highly experienced, played in a lot of games, won Currie Cups, played Super Rugby, so a very experienced player."
“So having a guy like that in your squad is quite helpful in terms of creating that competition at training."
“In terms of speeding up, learning off the younger looseheads like Leon Lyons, Sandi Sazi who scrums against him a lot, Vernon Matongo who’s also a loosehead and also to put pressure on guys like Neethling Fouché if he does scrum against him."
“So a very good individual to have in our system, and I think very underrated, considering he’s played quite a lot of games against proper tightheads and he’s dominated most of the time."