Despite a fine performance last week, hooker Deon Fourie has now been dropped to the Stormers bench for Saturday's clash with the Hurricanes.
Fourie was a late call-up for the Capetonians after regular starter Tiaan Liebenberg pulled out due to illness. But his replacement took his chance well against the Highlanders with an all-action effort before being brought off for Hanyani Shimange.
However, the 23-year-old's chances of claiming successive Super 14 starts are now over with the Stormers naming Liebenberg's in their line-up.
"Tiaan is fine," said Forwards Coach Matthew Proudfoot, speaking to the Cape Times.
"The only difficult thing about it is that it is a tough decision to leave out Deon Fourie. Deon had a great game against the Highlanders last week. His throwing-in was spot-on, he carried the ball well and what impressed me most was his scrumming.
"But we will bring back Tiaan because he is just a bit more solid with the basics. He was in good form before the Highlanders game and he is one of the leaders in the team."
On their upcoming opponents, Proudfoot is predicting the New Zealanders to target scrum-time ahead of what is one of the picks of the weekend's Super 14 fixtures.
"Their physicality will be higher than the Highlanders last week," he stated.
"They have two All Black props in John Schwalger and Neemia Tialata and they have one of the more energetic loose forwards in the competition in Rodney So'oialo.
"They won't kick the ball out much and they will concentrate on the scrums, where they are stronger. In my analysis of them, I found that they have the least lineouts this year of all the teams. They just want the ball and will look to hang on to it, not kick it out."
Stormers: 15 Joe Pietersen, 14 Sireli Naqelevuki, 13 Jaque Fourie, 12 Juan De Jongh, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Peter Grant, 9 Dewaldt Duvenage, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Francois Louw, 6 Schalk Burger (capt), 5 Andries Bekker, 4 Anton Van Zyl, 3 Brok Harris, 2 Tiaan Liebenberg, 1 Wicus Blaauw.
Replacements: 16 Deon Fourie, 17 JC Kritzinger, 18 De Kock Steenkamp, 19 Pieter Louw, 20 Ricky Januarie, 21 Lionel Cronje, 22 Gio Aplon.
Date: Saturday, March 13
Kick-off: 19:10 (17:10 GMT)
Venue: Newlands
Referee: Nathan Pearce (Australia)
Assistant referees: Steve Walsh (Australia), Marc van Zyl (South Africa)
Television match official: Shaun Veldsman (South Africa)
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