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Tiaan beefs Stormers' plans

Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer

Cape Town - The inclusion of Tiaan Liebenberg in a Stormers match-day 22 for the first time this season is a comforting thought for their camp as they contemplate the tough Super Rugby challenge of the Crusaders at Newlands on Saturday.

The burly first-choice hooker injured his knee in a pre-season friendly and has been in recovery mode for several weeks, but got good second-half game time for the Western Province Vodacom Cup team in their quarter-final defeat to the Sharks last weekend, and has been deemed ready now to warm the top-flight bench against the New Zealanders.

In truth, his absence has been far less severely felt than might have been expected, because Deon Fourie has played incredibly livewire rugby since stepping into the No 2 void - including another high-industry, aggressive personal effort as the senior Sharks were demolished 32-12 in an uncompromising derby last Saturday night.

But it is for that very reason that the Stormers may well feel the need to add decent, freshening forward thrust off the bench this weekend, and the meaty presence of Liebenberg fits that bill nicely.

Despite the home pack excelling in all areas in the eclipse of the Springbok-laden Sharks eight, Liebenberg remains probably the best scrummaging hooker on their books, and may be expected to provide 20 to 30 minutes of impetus at the set-piece (among other duties, of course) against the Crusaders if Fourie is feeling any lingering effects from last week's war.

Even without front-ranker Ben Franks and their first-choice lock pairing, the Crusaders ought to still field a formidable scrum - the Sharks can testify to that after they were rather humbled in that respect at Twickenham a few weeks ago.

So having Liebenberg available as a substitute for his first salvo of 2011 Super Rugby at this important juncture is a handy bit of security for the Stormers should they take any strain at scrum-time.

"It's good to have Tiaan back and fully recovered," coach Allister Coetzee told a media briefing on Wednesday.

"He knows he's got some hard work to do (to get his starting berth back) because Deon has really stood up - hopefully it will only inspire him to get back to the form we saw before he got injured."

Coetzee told Sport24 he was pleased with the "continuity" the Stormers would bring to the party on Saturday, considering that they have named an unchanged starting pack from the stirring victory against the Sharks.

He said it was a relief to field the same, familiar unit, considering that some training time was lost while various players attended the two-day Springbok camp on Sunday and Monday and the turnaround time to the Crusaders match has thus been lessened.

Teams:

Stormers:

15. Conrad Jantjes, 14. Johann Sadie, 13. Jaque Fourie, 12. Jean De Villiers, 11. Gio Aplon, 10. Lionel Cronje, 9. Dewaldt Duvenage, 8. Duane Vermeulen, 7. Francois Louw, 6. Schalk Burger (captain), 5. Andries Bekker, 4. Reynardt Elstadt, 3. CJ van der Linde, 2. Deon Fourie, 1. Wicus Blaauw

Substitutes: 16. Tiaan Liebenberg, 17. Brok Harris, 18. De Kock Steenkamp, 19. Nick Koster, 20. Ricky Januarie, 21. Kurt Coleman , 22. Juan De Jongh

Crusaders:
TBA
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