Rebels v Stormers – who will reign?

The Stormers will be working hard on cutting down their error rate when they finish their Australasian tour for 2013 in Melbourne’s AAMI Park against the Rebels on Friday morning (SA time).

The Rebels are still aiming for that elusive first win over a South African team in Super Rugby – they’ve now lost 11 straight against teams from the Republic since joining the competition in 2011.

Out of those 11, they lost twice against the DHL Stormers. Overall, South African teams boast a comfortable 39-21 average score over the Rebels, but back in Melbourne, this score changes to 36-25.

The Stormers, on the back of two narrow defeats, will be looking at getting back to winning ways in Melbourne this weekend.

Said Stormers captain Jean de Villiers: “We’ve lost two games we could’ve won, but didn’t. More than anything we need to win this game on Friday.

“The individual errors we’ve been making are not acceptable at this level. The coaches have done more than enough to put structures in place and give us an effective game plan, but we, as players, need to go and execute it and hold onto the ball.

“I think our defence was solid (against the Waratahs), even though we did concede two tries, and we created chances for ourselves, which, of course, we did not take.”

Allister Coetzee, coach of the DHL Stormers, said they need to put the defeats behind them and get a tick in the win column on the log for a change.

“Winning a conference or talking about play-off chances is looking too far ahead,” said Coetzee. “It’s all about this weekend – getting the points and getting back to winning ways again.”

The teams are:

Rebels: Jason Woodward, Tom English, Mitch Inman, Rory Sidey, Lachlan Mitchell, Bryce Hegarty, Nic Stirzaker, Scott Higginbotham (captain), Scott Fuglistaller, Jarrod Saffy, Cadeyrn Neville, Hugh Pyle, Laurie Weeks, Ged Robinson, Nic Henderson. Replacements: Shota Horie, Paul Alo-Emile, Luke Jones, Gareth Delve, Jordy Reid, Nick Phipps, Kimami Sitauti.

Stormers: Joe Pietersen, Gio Aplon, Juan de Jongh, Jean de Villiers (captain), Bryan Habana, Elton Jantjies, Louis Schreuder, Nizaam Carr, Siya Kolisi, Deon Fourie, Andries Bekker, Eben Etzebeth, Pat Cilliers, Scarra Ntubeni, Steven Kitshoff. Replacements: Martin Bezuidenhout, Frans Malherbe, Gerbrandt Grobler, Don Armand, Nic Groom, Gary van Aswegen, Gerhard van den Heever.

Rebels v Stormers
Date: Friday, 17 May
SA Time: 11h40
Venue: AAMI Park, Melbourne
Referee: Mike Fraser (New Zealand)
Assistant referees: Rohan Hoffmann (Australia), Ed Martin (Australia)
Television match official: Matt Goddard (Australia)