Hooker 'crisis' as Stormers count cost of Scarlets victory

INJURY UPDATE: Stormers Director of Rugby John Dobson revealed a bleak injury update following their hard-fought 52-40 Round Four United Rugby Championship victory over Scarlets at DHL Stadium.

The Stormers lost both hookers in the contest, with Springbok Andre-Hugo Venter leaving the field in the 35th minute before Lukhanyo Vokozela departed in the second half for a head injury assessment (HIA), which he failed, leaving the hosts without a designated No.2 for the remainder of the contest.

There is also concern around Deon Fourie, who departed the pitch during the second half with a hamstring injury, leaving the Stormers in a vulnerable position at hooker heading into their Round Five home clash against Ulster.

Dobson admitted the Stormers have a crisis on their hands in the No.2 position and summed the match up as “bizarre”.

“The match itself was absolutely bizarre; I was really pleased that we have a good contingency sheet if you lose both hookers [with Deon Fourie being the backup], but I never thought we’d be losing three.

“Deon was the third, so to lose all three hookers took away our set-piece, but credit to the team for the way they closed that game out; it was bizarre, but yes, it is a crisis for us.”

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Dobson elaborated on the nature of the injuries of the hookers in question and the other players who went down as well.

“The [smart] mouthguards were going like pinballs; it was ping, ping. Hacjivah [Dayimani] is definitely unavailable for Ulster.

“Boepa [Lukhanyo Vokozela] failed his first HIA and needs to do his second concussion test; Cobus [Reinach] passed his and went back on, Seabelo [Sentala] passed his concussion test, so they should all be available.

“Andre-Hugo [Venter] looks like he has a relatively serious elbow injury and Deon Fourie suffered a hamstring blow, so it’s not a great day for us in terms of our hooker stocks.

“Then there is JJ [Kotze] who is also still suspended next week, so it is a problem”.

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Stormers captain Paul de Villiers admitted that having lost all hookers, it made their job much more difficult as the hosts are a set-piece based team, having had to resort to uncontested scrums and De Villiers having to throw in at the line-out.

“It was crazy; normally you can either scrum or opt for the line-out, but today [Saturday] both options were risky,” De Villiers said.

“We wanted to stay away from the scrum and line-out, maybe the scrum more so because we knew our job in general stays quite the same.

“There were a few times we kept the ball, and when they kicked it into touch we tried to play quick, and in general attack we know our roles where it’s a bit different to our set-piece with guys out of position”

Dobson hinted that despite their latest injuries, he will have to make more changes for the Ulster clash to give some guys who have several minutes under their belts a rest and touched on which players are in line to return to full fitness.

“We probably have to give someone like Sacha [Feinberg-Mngomezulu] a break, and we have to solve our hooker issues.

“Hopefully Boepa [Vokozela] passes his second HIA, and then there’s still Vernon Paulo; we now have to look at hooker to get somebody in.

“Loose forwards seem to be our flash position at the moment, with Ruan Ackermann, Ben-Jason Dixon and now Deon Fourie out as well; we presume he [Fourie] won’t be fit for next week.

“Marcel Theunissen is also out so it’s quite a list of guys at loose forward that is unavailable.

“But we have sufficient backup; Louw Nel was great on tour, and we also have Wandi Mlaba, so we should be okay at loose forward, but at hooker we might have to do something in a short space of time.

“Keke Morabe is also close to returning, as is Ruan Ackermann,’ Dobson concluded.