Stormers’ future in young hands
20 Feb 2012
JON CARDINELLI writes the Stormers’ success during the initial rounds of Super Rugby will depend largely on the game management of 21-year-old flyhalf Gary van Aswegen.
‘Forget about Bash,’ said Jean de Villiers when asked about how the absence of first-choice No 10 Peter Grant had effected the Stormers’ pre-season preparations. De Villiers explained that the Cape franchise had approached the coming tournament as if Grant wouldn’t be back from Japan, and said the senior players would be backing Van Aswegen to handle the pressure in the early rounds of Super Rugby.
In his own description of the situation, head coach Allister Coetzee hasn’t come across as so unequivocally confident. He told this website two weeks ago that the young Stormers’ flyhalf contingent had failed to impress in pre-season outings against Boland, the Lions and Cheetahs. He also suggested that Grant would be needed back in the Cape sooner rather than later. ‘I hope his side wins this weekend,’ he chirped last week. ‘When you say that, they tend to lose, so I hope they win.’
Word from Japan is that Grant’s club, the Kobelco Steelers, won their play-off match against the Ricoh Black Rams last Saturday and will feature in this weekend’s All-Japan Championship semi-finals. This means that the earliest Grant will be back is next Monday (providing the Steelers lose) and 5 March at the latest (if the Steelers feature in the grand final). Either way, Grant will only be considered by the Stormers a week after his return, as Coetzee is wary of pushing him into the line-up too soon.
The decision to allow their first-choice flyhalf to play in Japan and thus compromise the Stormers’ start to the season has been discussed at length on this site. The Stormers struggled to get going last year as Grant took some time to settle when he eventually returned from Japan. You would expect a similar period of re-acclimatisation to occur in 2012.
But perhaps Grant shouldn’t be viewed as the Stormers’ premier flyhalf option any longer. Perhaps, as De Villiers has said, the Stormers should back their young pivot for the big matches. He may not have the experience of Grant, but as seen in his limited involvement with the Stormers and Western Province, he does possess a better all-round game.
Van Aswegen turned 21 last Saturday, but this will mark his second season in Super Rugby. He was a surprise replacement for Grant in early 2011 as the Stormers already had the talented Lionel Cronje on their books. The Stormers coaches said that Van Aswegen had the potential to develop into a fine flyhalf such was his game management and cool head in pressure situations. He held his own in Grant’s absence but injury then prevented him from playing for much of the year.
The Stormers are now in a position where they need Van Aswegen to come good. He’s not a rookie in the strictest sense, but the fact that he’s only 21 and boasts just a few caps will make him a target for opposing teams. The Stormers need to deliver up front this season, but they also need the man playing at No 10 to handle the pressure and take the correct options.
There’s good reason for the Stormers to feel optimistic about Van Aswegen in a decision-making position. While he may not evoke the same sense of excitement as young flyhalves like Pat Lambie, Elton Jantjies, Sias Ebersohn or Johan Goosen, he does fit into the Stormers’ pattern of play. He has the kicking game and the management skills to ensure the Cape franchise excels in a territorial approach.
The first match at Newlands should witness a clash of styles as the pragmatic Stormers host the more adventurous Hurricanes. The latter side has lost some experienced players and the decision to move Cory Jane to wing could do more harm than good considering the youth of the other backline options.
Nevertheless, the Stormers will look to squeeze and suffocate the Hurricanes by first dominating up front and then playing for territory. Van Aswegen won’t be kicking for goal this weekend (the responsibility will fall to fullback Joe Pietersen) but he will need to kick accurately out of hand.
In this respect, Coetzee will hope that Dewaldt Duvenage is fully fit and able to take his place alongside Van Aswegen in the halfbacks. Duvenage’s tactical kicking contributions would certainly ease the pressure on the young man’s shoulders.
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420 Comments
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20 Feb 2012, 23:05 pm
Howzit pietertjie.also queuing up for cunthie’s golden banana special?
20 Feb 2012, 23:07 pm
@clm(clm)-400:
So you prefer it up the poop shute?
It’s all you seem to talk about
20 Feb 2012, 23:11 pm
Maybe your granny enjoyed it like that at the koffiefontein holiday resort ne pietertjie
20 Feb 2012, 23:15 pm
@Kleuter(Kleuter)-395:
Who would eat a kitten, that is just silly!!
20 Feb 2012, 23:17 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-399:
..and how would you like your mermaids?
20 Feb 2012, 23:18 pm
@clm(clm)-401:
Hy sal ‘n moerse lang piesang moet hê om tot hier by te kom, so 16 500km lank
20 Feb 2012, 23:18 pm
Went to a koffiefontein holiday resort exhibition once and left feeling very cold.can now understand why the broederbond was formed
20 Feb 2012, 23:19 pm
@carol(carol)-404:
How about a bad kitty?
20 Feb 2012, 23:23 pm
@victoriabok(victoriabok)-408:
You would have to be Oriental to enjoy cat!
20 Feb 2012, 23:25 pm
@carol(carol)-409:
No, I was referring to the two legged bad kitty variety
20 Feb 2012, 23:28 pm
Cunthie is a magician pietertjie,sy piesantjie strek gemaklik oor oseane.
20 Feb 2012, 23:31 pm
@clm(clm)-411:
Dis te koud hier, hy sal krimp voordat hy hier uitkom
21 Feb 2012, 01:05 am
@carol(carol)-404: Not me, and neither would I eat a seahorse.
21 Feb 2012, 01:06 am
@clm(clm)-407: Shame. You should get help for that. Was it big?
21 Feb 2012, 01:27 am
eish…………… what a load of kakpraat!
21 Feb 2012, 04:42 am
Dismal hardly defines the many sick attitudes accurately.
When the wagons are so tightly drawn in a large circle ,no foreign souls can get in, let alone feel even remotely comfortable if in; the end result is destructive decadence.
Worst still no animals , even domestic ones, can get out. Thus baiting bestiality sickeningly manifests itself as a boring past-time among these supposedly ‘mature’ but unsophisticated rogues.
In a civilised society it is a felony but in my country of birth where the laager often gets formed, and increasingly so since the loss of their equivalent of their religion. rugby & its WC, the wagoners, who have more money than ‘brains’, find pleasure in demeaning themselves with such depraved notions.
There is only one movement , and it is downwards.
21 Feb 2012, 05:27 am
@the fartist known as Cun.t(her)357:
If I do not acknowledge this post, a suicide is likely to occur as this lost soul has been so traumatised by his lack of a genuine S.African culture since being shepherded out of the country in a reed basket and ‘growing up’ everywhere except in S.Africa. He has been lost for close to 20 years but he so desires to belong despite not being able to put together a simple Afrikaans sentence. He is nauseatingly restricted to “beskof” ( should be ‘onbeskof’ really), “karakter”(but does not know ‘karaktertrekke’) and such like.
As for the rest of his post, if so much is distorted by a desperate but too vivid an imagination resulting in sticky, wet dreams ,again, why should it be countered at all? Mocked, yes certainly so?
For example my reference to haploid cells becomes his “opinions” (as in “opinion is much SORT AFTER) or “get upset when your friend says your missus is a hottie” or “complain about racism in sport when you are banned from the faculty pool for releasing brown sharks” (despite both assertions not even making much sense, many miles have seperated me from anyone here so where does that non-existent ‘knowledge’ get its legs from).
Does the Fantasy World fool even know that not all colleges have pools? Mine has not.
What is he even trying to say here: “you are a wannabe saffa I philly when”
Clearly a case of least said soonest mended.
Drean on sticky, wet uncomfortable “karakter”.
21 Feb 2012, 06:10 am
(I am a stormer- Moffie)-343
Plus this from the USA, Japan thread:
“Only the other day, you took great delight in the Proteas losing.”
I still take much pleasure in any neo-racist team losing and yet recognise individual, yet untainted, talent and skill at the same time. Can your ‘brain” wrap around that idea?
Your restricted ‘cerebrum’ has not yet, and never will, evolve to that higher level where you can seperate emotion from pure unadulterated honesty.
You are so stuck in your white-is-right-and-might notions that you will never realise that nationalism, in your narrow-minded,rail-track perception(cannot veer off the track), is a wasteful, sick emotion that requires only hindbrain, and never forebrain, awareness.
Nationalism or your religion or the two coupled is/are the biggest cause of war or conflict or strife or genocide. I want no part of it. You can have all of it.
Do you ever realise that there is a far more exciting world outside the restrictions of narrow nationalism?
You are so irritatingly boring which explains why all take to the hills when you express a desire to meet them whether that be in Jhb., P.E. or C.T.
As for the rest of your ‘gatgabbas’ let them know I will not give them any pertinence for they are too banal and even anal.
21 Feb 2012, 06:48 am
@ET.(ET.)-418:
You really take the cake.
When it comes to boring, let us just say you’ve cornered the market. Every 2nd blogger around here seems to agree. Talk about resricted cerebrum.
Or maybe it’s just a case of you being “non compos mentis.”
21 Feb 2012, 09:13 am
@IAAS(I am a stormer)-419:
It’s OK
When he blathers and dribbles, everyone’s asleep anyway.
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