‘Remarkable’ duel comes at a cost for Stormers

The Stormers may have fallen short against the All Blacks, but their biggest concern could be the injury toll from a memorable night in Cape Town.

Director of rugby John Dobson confirmed post-match that scrumhalves Imad Khan and Dewaldt Duvenage both suffered injuries during the Stormers’ 38-21 defeat in the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour opener on Friday night.

“Immy’s got a reasonably serious knee injury, Dewaldt broke his arm,” Dobson said.

Khan was in pole position to don Stormers’ No 9 jersey for the start of the 2026-27 Vodacom URC season, in the absence of Springbok Cobus Reinach. The Cape club has options in the Currie Cup, who could be called upon if required.

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“We’ve got two great scrumhalves in the Currie Cup in Stef Ungerer and Ezekiel Ngobeni and then, if we have to look, we have to look,” said Dobson.

“You don’t count on two going down in one game and at some stage Cobus Reinach will come back.”

The injuries took some of the gloss off what Dobson described as an encouraging performance from a Stormers outfit that hadn’t played a competitive match since May.

“There’s enormous pride in our change room. I can’t fault anything about the team and it was a remarkable effort,” he said.

“We trained for three weeks and that first contact was the first bit of contact since Dublin [in the URC semi-final against Leinster]. Sixty-five minutes, we were going toe-to-toe.

“We knew and we said in the first five or 10 minutes, our heads would ring a bit. I’m super proud of them and hope they did the occasion justice.”

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One of the biggest positives was the performance of 20-year-old flyhalf Yaqeen Ahmed, who kicked two conversions on his Stormers debut.

“Really composed, took the ball on and wasn’t daunted by the occasion,” said Dobson.

“The guy’s got real big-match temperament, and in the change rooms he was sitting swapping jerseys with Beauden Barrett. And that’s the beauty of this sort of occasion.”

Photo: Cole Cruickshank/Gallo Images

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