Cape Town - Stormers head coach John Dobson praised the young Sacha Mngomezulu's top performance in their United Rugby Championship win over Zebra in Parma on Saturday.
The 20-year-old started at inside centre and scored 22 points as he was handed the kicking duties in his first start of the season, despite both Manie Libbok and Damian Willemse in the run-on side.
Mngomezulu slotted all four conversions, three penalties and also scored a try of his own. He also had a hand in one of the visitors' earlier tries.
“He is integral to the future of this team and the union. He was absolutely outstanding today. He is so competitive and very special,' said Dobson.
“We tried to grow him by giving him the goal-kicking and he did really well. Our plan with him is probably to let him settle at 12 and then longer-term he could be one of the better flyhalves in this country.
“We are very, very excited about all these young players that we’ve got, whether it’s Sacha, Suleiman or Imad Khan, Conor Evans and Paul de Villiers. We are excited about the future.”
Dobson went on to explain how Mngomezulu might feature in what is going be a taxing season, and gave a bit of insight into the plan regarding their 10-12-15 combinations.
“Sacha was outstanding today, but he doesn’t have to start every game in what will probably be a breakout season. Manie is definitely our No 1 flyhalf, Damian will play at 12 and 15 depending on how Clayton (Blommetjies) goes and our injury situation at centre.
“It’s not impossible to see Manie at 10, Sacha at 12 and Damian at fullback, if Clayton’s not around.
“The feedback around our selection this week amuses me, questions about how we left Marvin Orie on the bench for a game like this. We really have to understand that we are going to be playing a squad game this season. It’s about depth and capacity. If you think about Sacha, he has now been exposed a bit to this level, he has confidence. Whether that means he starts or not next week, I’m not sure.
“We won’t be able to field our best combinations every single week. We will have Clayton back next week and Damian will be going back home. We have to build capacity and I think Sacha’s performance was a massive step forward.
“Unless something goes wrong, he is going to be involved in every one of our matchday 23s going forward.”
IOL Sport