The Stormers players will play in their first match in six months when rugby returns to Newlands in the form of the Covid Cup today.
Stormers head coach John Dobson divided his squad into two teams – the Boulders Beach Penguins coached by Rito Hlungwane and the Devils Peak Dassies coached by Hanyani Shimange.
The Penguins and the Dassies will clash in three 20-minute chukkas, with Dobson saying: “We are playing for a thing called the Covid Cup… it will be full contact.
“We can’t go into games at altitude against Super Rugby teams [in Super Fan Saturday next week] without having some really good match simulation.”
Dobson, though, is fearful that his players might get hurt after such a long absence, having last played against the Sharks on March 14.
The coach says: “The truth is, we are massively scared of injury – probably not since school have the players gone six and a half months [without playing] like this and then to go straight into full-on games.
“We will be really worried about injury when watching [today], the Super Fan Saturday and the Green versus Gold match. We saw stats from the Bundesliga [on player injuries when they returned after the Covid-19 break].
“You see what happened in Europe [with injuries], in New Zealand… players are really keen to play mentally, but really worried about injury.
“We pushed as far as we could over the last few weeks, but it’s tough to scrum and maul with masks on.”
He adds: “Siya Kolisi, for example, his last game was the Hurricanes [at the start of the season]. So since the World Cup final in November last year he has played only 38 minutes of rugby in 10 months.
“It’s not ideal in terms of injury profile, but we want to play.”
Meanwhile, Pieter-Steph du Toit is still nursing a leg injury after surgery and is only expected to be ready to play at the end of next month.