‘Absolutely bizarre,’ says Dobson as Stormers’ hookers end up on sidelines

Stormers Director of Rugby John Dobson said it was “bizarre” that his team lost three hookers to injury during their 52-40 United Rigby Championship (URC) win over Scarlets in Cape Town at the weekend.

Most teams will have just two hookers in a match 23, but with a growing number of utility forwards in the game nowadays, the Stormers had three in their squad on Saturday. Andre-Hugo Venter started the match, with Lukhanyo Vokozela on the bench, along with Deon Fourie, who is primarily a loose forward, but comfortable at hooker.

Fourie was already on the field late in the first half, after eighthman Hacjivah Dayimani went off with a head knock, when Venter went off with a seemingly serious elbow injury, to be replaced by Vokozela.

Then, early in the second half Fourie hurt his hamstring and was replaced, which meant when Vokozela picked up an HIA in the 54th minute and left the field, the Stormers had no recognised hooker on the field, which led to uncontested scrums.

That robbed the team of a huge strength and attacking platform, while it also heavily affected their lineouts, which is another major part of their attack, due to their powerful rolling maul, as loose forward Paul de Villiers had to throw in at the lineouts.

Bizarre

Speaking after the match, Dobson explained: “I’m trying to avoid you quoting me as saying there’s a crisis, but it’s hard to walk past it, isn’t it? I do agree with you about the word ‘bizarre’. It was absolutely bizarre.

“That’s why I give enormous credit to this guy (captain Paul de Villiers) and his team for keeping their heads. If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs, including in the coaches’ boxes.

“I was really pleased with myself because I had a really good contingency sheet for what would happen if we lost both hookers, but I never thought about losing three, you know what I mean?

“Deon was the third, so to lose three hookers takes away all our set-piece options. There is a crisis. But credit to them for the way they closed that game out.”

Although he was proud of their fight in the face of all of the injuries and HIA calls, that also saw wing Seabelo Senatla and scrumhalf Cobus Reinach pop off for concussion tests, only to pass and return, Dobson admitted that their defence just wasn’t up to standard in the match.

Not much hope

“Halftime there wasn’t much hope for them (Scarlets, with the Stormers leading 33-14). But the way they played deserves credit. You could see they were getting hope after the break. We weren’t direct enough and a couple of years ago we would’ve lost that,” said Dobson.

“I don’t want us to be a team that becomes a bit too loose because we think we might not be playing one of the best sides in the URC or it is not a local derby. We got a bit like that today and we must nip it in the bud.”

The Stormers now have some interesting decisions to make at hooker, with Vokozela needing to pass a second HIA test to be in line to feature in their coming match against Ulster.

Venter and Fourie are both unlikely to be available, JJ Kotze is serving a suspension after his red card in the Champions Cup against Bristol Bears, which leaves rookies, Vernon Paulo, who struggled in the lineouts in howling wind in their loss overseas against Edinburgh, Luca Bakkes, and Altus Rabe as options.

The Stormers may thus need to bring in a short-term hooking option on loan, or possibly send an SOS to retired veteran Scarra Ntubeni, who played his last game for them in the URC last season against Connacht, but was then brought back from the cold to feature off the bench in two Currie Cup games in July, and he could need to do something similar now if still fit.