Stormers coach Rassie Erasmus will have to explain his team's poor performances in this year's Super 14, as chairman Pat Kuhn and Western Province Rugby Union president, Tobie Titus are on their way to New Zealand.

The Stormers face the Hurricanes at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington on Saturday and they will be desperate to get a win, having lost six out of their eight matches thus far.

Kuhn admitted that Erasmus has made "some vital mistakes" during the 2009 campaign and these will be addressed in the next two weeks.

"This trip has been planned for some time now, so we are not going there because of the dismal performances at the moment. We planned that, win or lose, we are going," Kuhn said in an interview with the Cape Times.

"It is bad to go and face these young men over there now. You can't go there with a whip now. Obviously we need to show that we are still supporting them at the moment.

"Rassie made some vital mistakes, but it is like anybody else in life. We all make mistakes sometimes. And we must be man enough to address the mistakes that we've made. We can boast the best defensive record in the Super 14. But in the end, that doesn't help your result."

While Erasmus has a contract until the end of 2010, Kuhn indicated that pressure is starting to build on the coach. He also said that Stormers bosses needed to play a greater role in making decisions.

"It is difficult to talk about Rassie being under pressure for his job. It is easy for everybody to say 'Yes, you must put Rassie under pressure'. But we've got to face the situation," Kuhn explained.

"We've got to think back to what we've actually planned. We had this aim three years ago about what we want to achieve. Now all of a sudden, the team is not performing again, then now we must put Rassie's job on the line.

"Yes, [we can play a greater role in making decisions]. But we obviously couldn't do that now when all these things happened and the team started losing all these games, because they are on tour now. When these boys come back, we need to unpack everything and see what went wrong."

Meanwhile, there is some good news for Erasmus, as lock Andries Bekker joined the team on the weekend after being sidelined with a toe injury for the past few weeks. Bekker is likely to start on the bench on Saturday, while a decision on Brian Mujati's (concussion) availability will be made later this week.

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