Bok boost for DHL Stormers

Springboks Evan Roos and Joseph Dweba come into the DHL Stormers starting line-up for the Investec Champions Cup clash with Racing 92 in Paris on Saturday.

There are several changes to the DHL Stormers team for the Round Four encounter at La Defence Arena, which kicks off at 22h00 (SAST) on Saturday.

Dweba is joined in the front row by Neethling Fouche, with Frans Malherbe set to make an impact off the replacements bench.

Captain Salmaan Moerat is joined in the second row by Ruben van Heerden, while Willie Engelbrecht and Marcel Theunissen are on either side of the scrum with Roos at No.8.

There is a new halfback pairing of the experienced Dewaldt Duvenage and Jurie Matthee, with Clayton Blommetjies at fullback in the only other change to the backline that did duty in the 40-0 win against Sale Sharks last weekend.

Director of Rugby John Dobson said that it will be key for his team to adapt to the conditions as quickly as possible in order to impose themselves on the game.

“We are playing on an artificial pitch under a closed roof in the European winter, which is quite a change from the summer conditions we enjoyed at home last week.

“We’ve got some exciting players coming into the mix this week and we are looking forward to seeing what sort of impact they make,” he said.

DHL Stormers: 15 Clayton Blommetjies, 14 Suleiman Hartzenberg, 13 Wandisile Simelane, 12 Jonathan Roche, 11 Ben Loader, 10 Jurie Matthee, 9 Dewaldt Duvenage, 8 Evan Roos, 7 Marcel Theunissen, 6 Willie Engelbrecht, 5 Ruben van Heerden, 4 Salmaan Moerat (captain), 3 Neethling Fouche, 2 Joseph Dweba, 1 Sti Sithole.
Replacements: 16 Andre-Hugo Venter, 17 Ali Vermaak, 18 Frans Malherbe, 19 JD Schickerling, 20 Dave Ewers, 21 Paul de Villiers, 22 Herschel Jantjies, 23 Jean-Luc du Plessis.