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Stormers get injury boost ahead of three-match Super Rugby trip

By Online Editors
Stormers Preview

The Stormers received a timely boost just hours before flying out for a three-match Super Rugby tour of Australasia.

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Lock Pieter-Steph du Toit has been cleared to tour after recovering from a back injury.

But they will have to do without Springbok hooker Bongi Mbonambi, who has been ruled out of the trip after undergoing emergency surgery – due to a burst appendix.

Mbonambi’s withdrawal means that hooker Dean Muir, who made his Stormers debut off the replacements bench against the Jaguares, is included in the touring squad along with the likes of loose forward Sikhumbuzo Notshe and prop Caylib Oosthuizen, who did not feature in the opening game at Newlands.

Stormers coach Robbie Fleck named a 27-man squad for the road trip.

After getting their 2018 campaign off to a winning start with a 28-20 victory against the Jaguares at Newlands on Saturday, the Stormers fly to Sydney on Sunday – where they will face the Waratahs in the second round.

From Sydney, the squad will then travel to New Zealand for encounters with the Highlanders and Crusaders, before heading back to Cape Town.

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Fleck said that the squad is looking forward to the tour as they look to build on what they achieved in their opening game at Newlands.

“We enjoy touring as a group and feel that there were plenty of positives in our performance against the Jaguares that we can build on in the coming weeks.

“The players have embraced the challenges that lie ahead of us and will be going all-out to raise our game further away from home,” he said.

Stormers squad: Nizaam Carr, Damian de Allende, Jan de Klerk, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Dewaldt Duvenage, Johannes Engelbrecht, Jacobus Janse van Rensburg, Steven Kitshoff, Siyamthanda Kolisi (captain), Dillyn Leyds, Wilco Louw, Sarel Marais, Dean Muir, Sikhumbuzo Notshe, Caylib Oosthuizen, Justin Phillips, Raymond Rhule, Carlu Sadie, Ramone Samuels, John Schickerling, Seabelo Senatla, Kobus van Dyk, Chris van Zyl, EW Viljoen, George Whitehead, Cobus Wiese, Damian Willemse.

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Flankly 8 hours ago
The AI advantage: How the next two Rugby World Cups will be won

If rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.

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