DHL Stormers coach John Dobson explained their selection for their final Vodacom URC league game against Cardiff Rugby, which included 12 changes, of which two were positional switches.
“Despite the number of changes, it didn’t take us too long to choose, and there were a couple of imperatives. First was what we needed to win this week, and the intensity we needed. That’s where someone like Salmaan is really important."
“Evan, Warrick and Ali Vermaak are players we decided we couldn’t afford to do without in a quarterfinal. But we are still going all out to win against Cardiff. We chose Salmaan Moerat to lead us as we know he will keep the intensity up."
"We could otherwise have started with Connor Evans in this game, but we needed Salmaan to set the tone, because we don’t want another Ospreys experience."
“The second thing was looking at guys who probably put a lot into this union, who won’t play in this stadium again in our colours. So there’s a sort of nod to that, but not the overriding thing."
“And then thirdly, we are going to be in a playoff and there are some guys with one or two niggles… Evan Roos and Ali Vermaak, for example. Those are guys I’m not sure that we could afford to be without in the playoffs.”
“If we end up going to Glasgow, we will be flying out next Friday, which gives us a whole week there and means we can train properly rather than lose training sessions like we do when we travel on the Tuesday."
“Losing momentum is a concern, and there is a risk to doing what we are doing on Friday and I am a bit worried about that,” said Dobson.
“Also because the team is in such a good space. We have been really consistent over the last few games. But, for example, we do have to play Manie Libbok. We’d like to have kept Sacha’s innings going and keep that flow going, but the fact is that if Sacha gets injured ahead of the playoffs, then Manie would not have played at all.
“So Manie has to play, and to control his game time, he has to start. It is not like looseforward, where you can cover for a guy if he is injured early in the game. If Sacha started and went down after five minutes, Manie would not be ready to play 75 minutes.
"It does worry me a bit as we are in such a nice space, but apart from needing to give players game time, there are also players we feel need protecting.”