JJ Kotze set for 50th cap as Stormers chase URC Shield hopes at Ellis Park

Stormers hooker JJ Kotze gets goosebumps thinking of running out for the 50th time for the Cape side this weekend against the Lions at Ellis Park.

While the milestone will be a special achievement for the 25-year-old, his focus will be to help the team get back to winning ways in Johannesburg (2.30pm kick-off) as they restart their United Rugby Championship (URC) campaign.

The Stormers are still in line to claim the SA Shield but know only a victory on Saturday will suffice.

Kotze’s 50th is another feather in his cap after he completed his degree in physiotherapy recently. He did this while racking up the matches for the inaugural URC winners.

He says he owes a lot to his teammates and coaches for allowing him to finish his studies, while playing.

“Finishing my degree was tough and I had to take a lot of time off from the Stormers,” Kotze said.

“They were very forgiving and supportive in helping me getting there. To keep playing for them and to get to 50, if you had made a deal with me as a kid that I would get one cap for the Stormers, I would have made that deal any day.

"Now I am standing on 50 ahead of the weekend. I get goosebumps just talking about it. It is incredible.”

The couple of weeks off due to the Six Nations Championship gave the team, especially the pack of forwards time to work on their shortcomings. They were exploited by the Sharks and Kotze and his teammates will hope that they’ve arrested that.

He added that they know what is at stake come Saturday and they must grab this opportunity with both hands. The Lions are riding a wave after a convincing victory over the Sharks that brough them five points at Ellis Park.

Kotze says they did not have a ‘next game’ to fix the mistakes that they made against the Sharks, but they had two weeks to set the record straight on the training field. Now, it is their responsibility to do it on the playing field.

“You can look at it both ways: you had two weeks off to sulk or two weeks to fix stuff. Hopefully, we chose the latter. We are working on our stuff to get our standards up again.

"The break came at a good time looking at the season as a whole and not just the last two games. We played 10 games on the trot, so the break was good just to reset,” he concluded.