Vodacom Bulls director of rugby Jake White did not show much sympathy for the DHL Stormers who lost 4 first-line players during the past two weeks.
The DHL Stormers are without 10 senior players, including Ben Loader, Evan Roos, Herschel Jantjies and Warrick Gelant, but still included three World Cup winners in their matchday squad.
“It’s a difficult one, nobody ever gets the perfect team to run out under any coach. I’ve been coaching for over 40 years and you never really get your perfect team," White said.
“It’s very similar to any province at any time. Sometimes you get a team and they have a couple of injuries but then you play against another team when you do have a lot of injuries."
“We are also missing a few guys. We have also seen a lot of guys leave our province over the last couple of years, like Duane Vermeulen, Trevor Nyakane, Walt Steenkamp, Ivan van Zyl."
“The point I am trying to make is that you can only control what you can control. We’ve both got injuries and can only pick the best team possible for that game, and I am sure the Stormers have done that, as we have.”
However, DHL Stormers head coach John Dobson said he has not lost any sleep over the injury situation.
“The one thing we spent last season doing, was trying to build our depth, expand the size of our squad and prove that the first year wasn’t a Cinderella thing,” Dobson said.
“To be honest, if this was two years ago, we would be a lot more tense and worried. We have such faith in the guys coming in, that we’ve built this squad.
“We are not going away. The way the team has handled everything, we are resilient. We will fight. That is in the DNA of this team."
“I haven’t lost any sleep over it."