Schalk Burger has come out strongly against the Stormers' continued use of Damian Willemse on the wing, arguing that the 27-year-old's ball-in-hand influence is too valuable to be marginalised out wide. Burger wants Willemse back at 12 or 15 — positions where he touches the ball most — and the fact that John Dobson has since conceded the experiment "can't" continue suggests the message has landed. The wider context is a Stormers squad with a genuine winger crisis, but Burger's point is that papering over that problem by misusing a top-end playmaker creates a bigger one.
The piece also digs into what went wrong against Connacht — a 10-point lead squandered in the final 18 minutes through a series of individual errors, including a high ball Gelant failed to claim that led directly to a try. Burger's breakdown is unsparing. With the run-in now featuring Glasgow at home (in conditions Burger believes will suit the visitors), followed by Ulster and Cardiff away, the Stormers' top-of-the-log ambitions are suddenly looking fragile. Worth reading for the forensic Connacht post-mortem alone.