No more overseas stars for Stormers

Stormers coach Allister Coetzee has confirmed that his attempts to sign Saracens loose forward Ernst Joubert amongst others as short-term injury cover were not successful.

Coetzee's team has been hit hard by injuries which resulted in him securing London Irish and Canadian international loose forward Jebb Sinclair on a short-term deal last week, but no sooner had the ink dried on that contract before exciting young No.8 Niaam Carr fell victim to a knee injury, leaving the Stormers in a similar situation.

With Schalk Burger, Duane Vermeulen and Nick Koster already on the injured list the loose forward stocks in Cape Town are getting pretty thin, which is why Coetzee wasted no time getting in touch with a few overseas-based prospects after the victory over the Cheetahs last week.

Joubert's Saracens team were dumped out of the Premiership by the Leicester Tigers on Saturday and Coetzee confirmed that he had been in contact with the South African loose forward in an attempt to bring him over to bolster their stocks for the last few weeks of the season ahead of the play-offs in the same way his Sarcens teammate Schalk Brits did last year, but the Stormers boss was ultimately unable to get his man.

"I have been in contact with Ernst and I have been in contact with a few other players, there are a lot of things that need to be done in a process like that and if you can't get the player then you can't get him," he explained.

Coetzee said that the only option is to back the talent thay have coming through the structures at the union, and added that if Sinclair gets injured then the next option at the back of the scrum may be Siya Kolisi as hooker Deon Fourie can also cover openside flank.

"If you can't bring players in then you have got to back what you have at home, and I am not really scared to back them. It has gone so far that we have looked at Siya [Kolisi] packing down at No.8 too because he is a skilful player and can do a job there.

"We said at the beginning of the year if you look at our opensiders there is Schalk [Burger] and our next best openside is probably Deon Fourie so the challenge is to back him if anything should happen to Siya Kolisi, so we are backing what we have," he said.