Stormers have ‘no excuses’
SUPER RUGBY REACTION: Might have been the delay or the absence of the Marvel-inspired Super Hero strip, one thing is certain there are some huge problems in the Stormers camp.
Stormers, whose pre-season had been overshadowed by a power struggle among officials, lost all eight away matches last year and it seems like the 2018 season could replay itself.
The Cape Town franchise opened their Super Rugby campaign with an embarrassing 3-40 defeat to the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.
Just two weeks ago a young Stormers side (regarded the ‘B-team’) recorded a 33-28 win over the Bok-laden Springboks side, however on Saturday the experienced starting XV, which included Springboks Siya Kolisi, Damian De Allande, Sikhumbuzo Notshe and Pieter-Steph du Toit just to name a few, conceded four tries and only conjured up a penalty from SP Marais.
Whatever could go wrong, went wrong.
First the match started late because the Stormers were delayed by an accident on the N1. Then their line-outs imploded, credit must go to Bulls captain Lood de Jager and his pack.
And soon Robert Fleck’s side found themselves 3-21 down after just 24 minutes if play.
Furthermore, losing captain Kolisi due to an injury did not aid their endeavours.
Kolisi left the field in the first half after a finger appeared to make contact with his eye, head coach Fleck revealed.
Despite being outplayed in all facets of the game especially in first half, head coach Robbie Fleck managed to find a silver lining.
“It’s a tough start for us,” Fleck told reporters after Saturday’s match at Loftus.
“Two weeks ago, they made all the mistakes, this week we made all the mistakes and they put us to bed.
“We certainly won’t look at that [delay] as an excuse, we just didn’t deliver, and we can’t look at external excuses.
“It was a frustrating performance, you can’t play at this level with no possession and we had no possession in the first half.
“Probably the only positive for us was our scrum. I felt that we did have them [Bulls] under pressure and probably deserved a little bit more at scrum time, but certainly our lineout didn’t function, and we just couldn’t build any phases,” Fleck explained.
Stormers’ mentor praised the Bulls’ performance stating: “It was a clinical performance from them [Bulls] but not so much us [Stormers].
“Their kicking game was superb – certainly not a surprise. Handre Pollard took control excellently.
“We made too many mistakes, we couldn’t get any possession, so it certainly was an off day”.
The coach hopes his side can put the horrendous defeat behind them as they prepare to take on the Lions next at Newlands.
“Lots of teams have lost the first round and gathered the pieces and performed well, so we got to take heart in that heading into the next fixture,”
By Josh Isaacson
@isaacson_j
@rugby365com
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