Stormers aim for more 'seductive' game
WATCH as Stormers coach John Dobson and captain Siyamthanda Kolisi unpack their 34-21 win over the Lions in the SuperFan at Loftus Versfeld at the weekend.
Dobson admitted that his team wants to “evolve” their game beyond obvious set-piece strengths.
With their hoard of World Cup-winning forwards – Kolisi, Frans Malherbe, Steven Kitshoff and Mbongeni Mbonambi – they scrummed the Lions into submission in Pretoria.
However, the coach feels the team needs to be more charismatic and produce a more glamorous style.
“We feel we have over-relied on it in the past,” Dobson said of his team’s set-piece dominance against the Lions.
“I was quite please in the second half when the scrums evened up,” he said of a period when the Lions made 15 changes and the fresh legs tested the Stormers’ tiring forwards.
“We want to evolve our game beyond just relying on a scrum bailout,” he said, adding that he was very pleased when his captain, Kolisi, opted for a few line-out mauls in the second half.
“We wanted to work on our maul, which has disappeared a bit over the last two or three years.”
However, the Stormers’ game needs to evolve significantly.
“We want to play a bit more seductively than just relying on [props] Frans [Malherbe], Kitsie [Steven Kitshoff], Bongi [Mbonambi] and Scarra [Ntubeni] to get us penalties,” Dobson said.
“I was pleased with it [scrum dominance], but not something we want to overplay.”
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He suggested they were ‘lucky’ to hold on when the Lions brought a fresh team on after 50 minutes, adding that his tiring charges showed great character.
Because they have a bye in the first round of the new Super Rugby Unlocked competition, the Stormers are three weeks away from their next match as a team.
“[We are] not where we should be,” the coach said.
“There are some things we need to work on.
“Our breakdown was pretty poor and our kicking game, we didn’t quite get right.”
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