Salmaan Moerat is bracing for a bruising battle with La Rochelle regardless of the team coach Ronan O’ Gara puts out in their Investec Champions Cup clash on Saturday.

The Cape Town side has been plagued by ill-discipline in recent weeks, playing a large chunk of its last two matches with 14 men.

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Against Munster in their top-of-the-table Vodacom URC clash, the Stormers received two yellow cards and were briefly down to 13 men inside the opening 20 minutes. Last weekend in Bayonne, lock Adre Smith was sent off for a reckless stamp, forcing John Dobson’s men to dig deep once again.

Moerat admits the pattern is unsustainable at this level.

“We played about 50 minutes with 14 men these past couple of games, and at this level, it’s unacceptable. It really challenges the team on defence and on attack,” he said.

“The controllable penalties are the ones we can work on, but we can’t get into any stupid, off-the-ball stuff.”

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Despite the red-mist moments, Moerat has been encouraged by his side’s resilience under pressure. They emerged from the Munster cauldron with a hard-fought come-from-behind victory and beat Bayonne despite being a man down for most of the second half.

“There’s a lot of resilience in the team, which we saw especially in that Munster game when we were down to 13 in the first 20 minutes. There’s certainly a lot of fight in the team,” the captain said.

Photo: Dave Winter/INPHO