Cape Town – The Stormers will be without fetcher Deon Fourie for “quite a while” due to his fractured cheekbone in a big blow to the team as they look to secure second place on the United Rugby Championship standings.
Fourie was missed this past weekend as the Stormers fell to Exeter Chiefs 42-17 in the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup and now they are set to face Munster (6:15pm kickoff) in a vital clash in Cape Town on Saturday without his services.
“I think it’s going to be quite a while,” Stormers coach John Dobson said about Fourie’s absence.
“He blew his nose last Saturday night, his eye did not pop out, but it’s one of those horrible ones. You can get him back in a few weeks, but it can also be for up to six to eight weeks.
“He’s tough, so maybe we’ll be looking at four weeks.”
The Munster match is a vital one for the Stormers because it can determine whether they will finish second on the log, behind leaders Leinster.
Ulster in third place are hot on the heels of the defending URC champions and can leapfrog them if the Stormers fail to win both of their final round-robin games and the Irish club wins theirs.
Fourie will be a massive loss, though, as the Stormers rely on him primarily to poach possession in dangerous positions, but also to slow down their opponent’s attack.
That was missing in the game against Exeter who overpowered the Cape side with quick breakdowns in attacking positions.
Dobson lamented the absence of Fourie, saying they will have to make a plan to be able to deal with that.
“There were a couple of chances to steal possession and he (Fourie) would’ve taken another cleaner out and slowed the ball down,” Dobson said of what Fourie would’ve contributed at Sandy Park last Saturday.
”We did miss him a helluva lot and I didn’t expect it to be quite that much.”
Exeter were full value for their win and Dobson pointed out a couple of areas in that game where he wants to see his team sharpen up over the next couple of weeks.
One of them is their tactical kicking in the wind and coping without Fourie on the field. They also slipped up in the tackling department and need to improve before playing Munster.
@Leighton_K
IOL Sport
