Hot on the heels of Springbok Jean de Villiers suddenly being ruled out for weeks with a wrist injury, a big blow for the strategic shape of the high-riding South Africans, defending champions the Reds had a setback of their own on Tuesday when outside centre Aidan Toua reportedly pulled a hamstring in training.
So just as the Stormers have had to improvise by asking back-in-form left wing Bryan Habana to do duty at outside centre with Juan de Jongh shifting to No 12, the Reds will shuffle their cards a bit to adapt to the inconvenience.
Promising inside centre Ben Tapuai, who went on the Wallabies’ short end-of-year tour to the UK in 2011, is expected to shift outside, putting him head to head with Habana, with goal-kicker Mike Harris making his own comeback from a month on the sidelines by wearing the No 12 shirt.
Harris had earlier been tipped to play flyhalf, but if he is now asked to patrol the midfield instead it could mean that Bishops-educated Sam Lane, 21, familiar to some of the Stormers players, retains his berth at No 10 after making a decent debut against the Brumbies almost a fortnight back.
The Reds are still awaiting the return to combat of their key flyhalf string-puller Quade Cooper, who has been absent from all rugby since the tail-end of the World Cup but expected to be ready to start again fairly shortly.