Kaino lining up centurion Vermeulen
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Blues captain Jerome Kaino is looking forward to 'butting heads' with his Stormers counterpart Duane Vermeulen at Newlands.
The South African Player of the Year will earn his 100th Super Rugby cap in his team's first home game of the year on Saturday, and Kaino is expecting a typically fierce contest from his opposite number.
"As you saw last year and the season that he had, he was very influential in the Springbok jersey and he showed last week how influential he is for the Stormers.
"He has got a huge milestone coming up this week with his 100th and I am sure the Stormers boys will want to perform for him and play well for him.
"I have no doubt that he will lead by example, he is a great player, a great person and I am looking forward to butting heads with him," he said.
The Blues made a shaky start to the season with a tryless defeat at home to the Chiefs, and come up against a Stormers team full of confidence after their victory over the Bulls at Loftus Versveld.
Kaino knows that his side will not start as favourites, and pointed to the forward battle as the key against a highly physical Stormers side.
"A lot of the strengths that the Stormers have are in their forwards, their line-out drive, big ball-carriers and their defence. They were ragdolling some of the Bulls which hardly ever happens.
"Where I stand, being captain as well, we are trying to prepare our forwards to match them in that forward battle," he said.
The Blues captain admitted that his side will have to raise their game significantly if they are going to tuen the Stormers over at home.
"It was a tough start for us, we didn't play as well as we wanted to, and I think it is tough any time you tour South Africa and the nature of this competition means there are never any easy games.
"I thought the Stormers played really well, the Bulls aren't an easy side to tip over at home so judging on the standard of their performance they look really good heading into this game.
"We have been learning a lot from how they played and it was hard to find weaknesses in their game, but we will try and play the way we play and hopefully it comes off," he added.
By Michael de Vries
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