Stormers don't care about Force's problems
Western Force prop Pek Cowan has been stripped of the captaincy for Saturday's clash with the Stormers in Perth after breaking the team's curfew while on tour in South Africa.
The Australian Rugby Union are also launching an inquiry into the alleged drunken behaviour of a player. The player, who has not been named, allegedly urinated in the hallway of the team's Bloemfontein hotel.
In other incidents, brothers Dane and Ross Haylett-Petty broke a vase after being involved in scuffle in the hotel, while Adam Coleman and Francois van Wyk were involved in a heated argument.
The incidents happened after the Force's 29-30 loss to the Cheetahs.
Squad captain Matt Hodgson accused the players of ruining the team's culture ahead of their meeting with the Stormers.
Stormers head coach Robbie Fleck did not want to comment on the Force's ill-disciplined tour and instead outlined his team's objectives for their final game of their Australian tour.
"With regard to our attitude and approach to this game, there won't be any complacency," said Fleck via teleconference from Perth.
"We still have to qualify for a home quarterfinal and we still have to win our conference, so we are going all out to win this game.
"We set ourselves some goals prior to leaving South Africa and that was to win both games. We achieved the first objective [against the Melbourne Rebels] and now we need to win this one.
"We want to make it a memorable tour – we got a record score this past weekend in Australia and we would like to improve on that performance. We have won nothing yet so there is huge motivation in the squad to keep improving."
The Stormers will be without prop Oliver Kebble for Saturday's game after he was sidelined with a knee injury.
The 24-year-old will be a big loss, especially after his impressive performance at scrum time in the 57-31 win over the Rebels.
"It is disappointing to lose Oli. I felt that he had a good game on the weekend and he has certainly been working hard on his game, especially his scrummaging work.
"Alistair Vermaak comes into the mix and it is a good opportunity for him to get some game time and perform well.
"He has had game time for the Currie Cup side, but he has not had a lot of time with us.
"He is looking forward to the opportunity and he is a good team man and he will give everything," Fleck added.
Meanwhile, Fleck said that both Nizaam Carr and Kebble could be ready for their final league phase game against the Southern Kings next weekend.
Carr injured his shoulder in Melbourne and returned home earlier this week. However, Fleck said he might only be out for a week. The same goes for Kebble.
In other injury news, prop JC Janse van Rensburg, scrumhalf Jano Vermaak and Robert du Preez could all feature for the Stormers next week. All three are over their respective injuries and have been playing and training with Western Province.
By Warren Fortune
@FortuneWarren
@rugby365com
Additional sources:
The West Australian
foxsports.com.au
