The United Rugby Championship’s whipping boys, Italy’s Zebre, will take the field at Cape Town Stadium tomorrow 3pm for the first time when they face the Stormers.
Off the back of five consecutive defeats, Zebre hit our shores with a negative points difference of 109 after a handful of outings.
They also took flight from Italy minus star winger Pierre Bruno, who has scored the most tries (2) beaten the most defenders (15), made the most offloads (7) and made the most metres (214) for his team to date.
Bruno is rested after making his debut for the Italy national team recently.
On the other side of the pitch, the Stormers’ star so far this season has been No.8 Evan Roos.
He tops the Cape team’s charts with 20 defenders beaten and 240 metres gained.
Unlike Bruno, Roos was not involved in the end-of-year internationals, but if he continues in this vein it’s just a matter of time before he wears the Green and Gold.
Forwards coach Rito Hlungwani says: “Evan’s improved quite a lot since he’s been here. He’s always been good, but I think what you guys see on the field is sort of the cherry on top.
“What really impressed me is seeing how he handles himself every day, how he’s so focused on his diet, how he is so focused on doing extras after training sessions, how he’s so focused on his team work, pretty much the hard work that you don’t see - the bottom of the iceberg.
“That’s the most impressive thing to me… special player that works really hard to make sure that he performs week in and week out.”
The Stormers will name their team for the clash today, but you can be sure that Roos will be in the mix as they go out to give Zebre ses vannie bestes.