Familiarity will work both ways for Hacjivah and Stormers

The DHL Stormers will be up against a threat they know only too well when they face Racing 92 in a fourth round Investec Champions Cup game in France on Saturday that will determine whether they advance to the next phase of the competition.

Round Four action in Paris on Saturday night. #iamastormer pic.twitter.com/Lw6hkQ3sBC

— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) January 13, 2025

In the previous two seasons when the Stormers advanced to first the quarterfinal in 2022/2023 and then made it to the round of 14 last year, where they lost narrowly to La Rochelle, loose-forward Hacjivah Dayimani was a bit part of their success and of their planning. Dayimani’s X-factor and ability to link backs and forwards was undeniably missed in the first part of the new season.

However Dayimani, who was quite outward in his social celebrations of the Stormers clinching the inaugural Vodacom United Rugby Championship title by beating the Vodacom Bulls in the 2022 final, is now playing for the opposition - and it equates to an interesting test for the Stormers when it comes to preparation for this game.

“Look, obviously we do know Hacjivah really well, but then he has a lot of inside on us,” said attack coach Dawie Snyman during a break in the preparations for Saturday night’s game in Paris.

“Let me say first off that we are grateful to Hacjivah for what he did for us when he was here. He was a great Stormers player and will always be recognised as such, and he’s also a great man. We are well aware of what he can do when he gets the ball. He is extremely dangerous in space and we know that.

“There again, it is also true that we have all seen a lot of him in training. So while he has some inside on us, we also know him really well and most of the players have trained against him at some point and also trained alongside him so he won’t be the unknown factor for us he may be to other teams.”

BOTH FOR AND AGAINST

Wing Ben Loader, who made a successful return to the Stormers side after a seven month layoff for injury in the 40-0 win over the Sale Sharks in the third round clash at the weekend, is one of those players who has played both with Dayimani and against him. The Englishman was playing for London Irish in the Stormers’ first season of participation in the Champions Cup, a year where teams played each other home and away.

“I have experienced Hacjivah quite a lot both in training and in some games. Fortunately most of the time he has been on my side, so Saturday will be a bit different,” said Loader.

“It will be a good challenge. As Dawie says, we know just how dangerous he can be. But it is always nice to play against guys you consider your friends as you tend to go a little bit harder against them and I am sure it will be the same on Saturday.”

CHANGES TO HIS GAME

That is assuming Dayimani plays against his old team, which is not a given, but it will be interesting to watch what changes the looseforward, who made his debut in senior rugby playing for the Emirates Lions, might have made to his game.

He has told journalists that one of the reasons he left to play for Racing was because of what the Racing coach Stuart Lancaster, the former England head coach and Leinster senior coach, offered him in terms of improving the grafting and physical aspects of forward play that he might previously have neglected and which is understood to be why he was never able to crack it into the Springbok squad.

Playing on the 4G pitch at La Defense, which is also situated under a roof, should certainly have helped Dayimani’s known strengths, and Loader is expecting a fast game on a surface he knows a bit better than most of his teammates due to exposure to it when playing in England.

“Playing on a 4G is always slightly different and as an outside back it is great as it makes you feel very fast, but there are challenges to contend with, such as the bounce of the ball. I have not played indoors before, so that is something to get used to, but I don’t think we will want to go too far away from our identity so hopefully it will be another fast game like last week’s game against Sale.”

It was how the Stormers put their defensive game together, thus earning them each a donut from defence coach Norman Laker for now allowing Sale to cross their line, that Loader feels will most help boost the team’s confidence.

“Obviously playing at home in the sun was great for our attacking game but we can take a lot of confidence from our defensive effort against a very strong Sale side,” said the wing.

“They posed threats across the board so we did really well to shut them down. Racing will be a different proposition and we know that. But the centres Wandy (Wandesile Simelane) and Jonny (Jonathan Roche) can take huge confidence from how well they did defensively against Sale and it will help them be ready for this challenge (should they play).”

The Stormers will be taking a squad of 28 when they leave for France on Tuesday night for a tour that also includes a URC game against Leinster.

The squad will not be announced before departure so we will have to wait until the team announcement on Friday before finding out what combinations head coach John Dobson will come up with.