Cape Town — The Stormers will make the final call on Tuesday evening over resting key players, like flyhalf Manie Libbok, for Saturday's United Rugby Championship (URC) clash against the Bulls.
Loose forwards Evan Roos and Hacjivah Dayimani are still struggling with injuries and will not be available for the trip to Loftus Versfeld.
And after a week-long break where the players got the chance to put their feet up, the Cape side is hard at work preparing for the must-win South African derby.
And although the break came at a time when the Stormers were flying high after a convincing win over the Sharks, their defence coach Norman Laker does not believe the rest will affect their momentum.
Instead, Laker believes the break came at the right time after the defending URC champions had a run of 11 consecutive games in the URC and European Champions Cup since early November.
He says the players hit the ground running on Monday in the Cape Town heat to prepare as best as possible for what Pretoria and the Bulls will bring.
It's been a wet week up north but Laker says they won't prepare for any type of weather conditions but the focus will rather on implementing their game plan on Saturday.
"How we play is suitable for any conditions," Laker said.
"We made the mistake in the past of preparing for something wet (in Pretoria) or humid like in Durban. On the day you either get no humidity or it's very hot.
"At the moment we're just preparing to play our type of game."
Laker believes no team goes to Loftus as the favourites with that tag firmly belonging to the home side even if the Stormers are unbeaten in the URC against the Loftus side.
IOL Sport