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Stormers enlist Cheetahs help ahead of Leinster game
By Rugby365
The Stormers have received much-needed help from one of their fellow South African franchises. With the hooker position being a major problem area in terms of injuries, Stormers assistant coach Dawie Snyman revealed that Wilmar Arnoldi has joined them on loan from the Cheetahs.
Springbok Siyabonga Ntubeni will be out of action for a lengthy period after he suffered a “bad” Achilles injury in the 32-7 win over Glasgow.
With Andre-Hugo Venter and Chad Solomon both a week away from returning to the training field, it meant that JJ Kotze was the only fit hooker in the squad heading into a massive clash against Leinster.
The Stormers have the option of moving the returning Deon Fourie to hooker, but the coaching team would prefer it if the 35-year-old focuses on his loose-forward play.
It’s for those reasons that Arnoldi will be thrust into action this weekend and his main goal will be to help the Stormers keep their dominance in the scrums.
“We want to play in a certain way and a lot of people see the offloads and the space that we create and it starts from somewhere, so his main priority will be to get the set-piece right,” said Snyman.
“He will be working with Frans [Malherbe] and others in terms of scrumming and the line-outs will also be a vital part of the game.
“We will probably let him focus on that for the week and just get a little bit of understanding on how we play.
“We know he is quite a tough player and he is good on the ground.
“He can steal the ball and he is quite a good defender. Set-piece wise he is spot on.
“He has got a great throw and is a good scrummaging hooker.”
On Fourie, Snyman added: “Deon’s versatility is great and he is doing great for us at loose forward.
“It’s probably why we also got Wilmar in so that Deon covers that position [No.6] for us this weekend.
“But he still needs to be there [at hooker] as a back-up. I didn’t see him throw in today [Monday], but hopefully, we can keep Deon focussing on No.6.”
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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