Moerat’s departure leaves Stormers with a second row depth problem

The open secret has been confirmed - Springbok lock and DHL Stormers club captain Salmaan Moerat will be leaving Cape Town at the end of the current season to link up for two time Investec Champions Cup title holders, La Rochelle.

The move means that an area of previous strength in the second row now has a question mark over it, as Ruben van Heerden is also understood to be leaving the Stormers at the end of the French season, in his case Montpellier. Having four quality locks to call on was what enabled the Stormers to rely on a supersonic bomb squad to turn the screws on opponents late on in games during their 10 match unbeaten run across both the Champions Cup and URC at the start of the season.

They do have two strong stalwarts on their books in the form of JD Schickerling and Adre Smith, and there are still high hopes that young Connor Evans will come through and establish himself and confirm his potential. There are other young locks on the Stormers’ books that have yet to play senior rugby, such as Junior Springbok captain Rilee Norton.

Salmaan Moerat will leave Cape Town at the end of the current season to take up an opportunity in France.

'I grew up dreaming of playing for this team and the memories I have will stay with me forever'

Full story: https://t.co/ovDiJpDIg9 pic.twitter.com/JDkhROhRru — DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) April 8, 2026

Ben-Jason Dixon also spent much of his early career at lock and is more than capable of playing there, as he did for a part of the good win against the Vodacom Bulls in Pretoria last month. But moving Dixon more permanently would mean the Stormers would be short of his kind of player at No 7 flank, which is where has played for South Africa.

That the Stormers are on the look out for quality lock replacements for Moerat and Van Heerden was indicated by their bid to lure Cobus Wiese, who started his senior rugby playing for Western Province and the Stormers, back to the Cape from the Bulls. They were unsuccessful, with Wiese opting to sign a two year contract extension with the Pretoria franchise.

Losing Moerat is a big blow to the Stormers and director of rugby John Dobson’s 2029 Project but on the flip side, influential and at times possibly underrated by arm-chair critics as he is, Moerat does tend to get injured a lot and the last few seasons have been stop and start for him in terms of him getting game time and building momentum. Currently he is out with a toe injury sustained in January. It is unclear when or if he will return to do battle for the Stormers again before the end of the season, although it is likely that, like Van Heerden, he will get a last hurrah in the URC playoffs.

Moerat has played for WP and the Stormers exclusively since he wasn’t long out of school, where he made the SA Schools team after captaining WP Schools successfully in the 2016 Craven Week at Kearsney College in KZN.

Moerat was schooled at Paarl Boys High and went on from his successful school career to captain the Junior Springboks in 2018, the same year that he made his debut for the Stormers. He has earned 70 Stormers caps to date and captained the team in their historic first ever Vodacom URC game against Benetton in Treviso in 2021. He has led the Stormers as club captain for the past two seasons and also captained the Boks in that time.

Dobson said that while it was tough to let a player of Moerat’s quality go, the Stormers were never going to stand in his way.

“This is a significant opportunity for him and his young family to achieve financial security that would not be possible here,” said Dobson.

“He will always be part of us and hopefully he will return home at some stage.”

Moerat in turn said via a Stormers press release that his connection with the Stormers would always be there.

“I grew up dreaming of playing for the team and the memories I have will stay with me forever,” he said.

“This move will hopefully be a positive one for me as a rugby player and my family and I’d love to return to play for the Stormers one day. It will always be home for me.”

Should Moerat return later in his career it would be in keeping with a trend at the Stormers, with many players who have left for overseas in the past few years - Steven Kitshoff, Warrick Geland and Hacjivah Dayimani - not being away for long before heading back to the Cape. Unfortunately in Kitshoff’s case he was cut down by a career ending injury not long after returning early from his stint at Ulster.