Cape Town — They know their capabilities on attack and what they can do when Manie Libbok and Damian Willemse are in space, but the focus this week for the Stormers will be to refine their double tackles ahead of Saturday's United Rugby Championship quarter-final against the Bulls.
The two South African team will lock horns (3:30pm kickoff) in a repeat of last season's URC final to see who will make it through to the semis.
Western Province showed how effective and devastating those double hits can be against opponents after they pummelled the Blue Bulls into submission with it in the Currie Cup.
Province won the match 31-7 in Cape Town Stadium and the victory should be a boost for the senior Stormers' players ahead of the last eight encounter, as it was their youngsters against a virtual Bulls URC team.
The likes of locks Connor Evans and Dylan de Leeuw, loose forwards Willie Engelbrecht, Keke Morabe and Marcel Theunissen, along with backs Jean-Luc du Plessis, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Cornel Smit were mammoth with the double hits.
That stopped the Bulls' big forwards from getting momentum going forward, while fullback Kurt-Lee Arendse struggled to wreak havoc with his deadly counter-attacks.
Stormers coach John Dobson said they will be looking to emulate what WP did tat the weekend as they will more or less face the same Bulls outfit.
Apart from a few changes, with regular captain Ruan Nortje, flank Marcell Coetzee and wing Canan Moodie returning, the Pretoria side will most likely bring the same team for the URC game.
And after resting his stars for the long weekend, Dobson said they are turning things up a notch in their practice sessions.
"It's going to be proper Test-match intensity on the training field this week," Dobson said.
"We haven't always been brilliant at those double tackle areas this season, but the Province guys were brilliant at it, and it's something we are going to take into the week.
"We gave our guys a long weekend, those 15 or 16 players, but we did a lot of work (last week) Monday through to Wednesday, so they'll come back good.
"It's going to be a great rugby occasion."
In December last year, Bulls coach Jake White played a second-string team in the Champions Cup against Exeter Chiefs away and chose to rest his players for a vital Stormers match.
That rest proved a momentum-breaker as the Bulls came to Cape Town just before Christmas and were thoroughly beaten by the Stormers even when they rested their stars to be fresh.
While Dobson gave his stars a break, the coach said they will all be switched on for the quarter-final.
“There's a lot on the line, so our guys are tuned in for it. Make no mistake about it. I am not worried about them having to pick up anything, they've done their meters and done their freshening up ahead of the week,” he said.
IOL Sport