Stormers seeking ruthless streak
Stormers captain Jean de Villiers is happy with the winning mentality that his side have developed this season, but admits that they are still looking for the complete performance.
The Cape side have only lost one game this season but have come in for criticism for not scoring enough tries and entertaining the crowd, which has been quite frustrating for their captain who made it clear that victory is a higher priority for them than playing pretty rugby.
He commented: “We are conscious of the fact that winning is more important than the way that you play. I think from a fans or media point of view you guys will always be able to find a negative. It is very easy to be a critic and I think for us at this stage to say that the negative for us is not scoring tries but winning, then we are in a good position.
“A couple of years ago we would have given anything just to get a couple of wins on the trot, so I think that we are happy with where we are and we know that we are not the finished product yet.”
De Villiers acknowledged that his team could pose more of a threat to the opposition tryline, but pointed out that it is not simply a case of switching to an attacking style as there are a number of factors that influence how they approach each game.
“We are working really hard to put the complete game together but you need the conditions to be right for that and you need the opposition to allow that in a way, so hopefully those things will come together and work in our favour. We are conscious of it and we know what the public wants, but we also know what we want to achieve.
“You can plan as much as you want to throw the ball around, and I think you will agree that the Cheetahs are quite an expansive team but I didn’t see them throwing it around a lot on Saturday, so you have to take everything into consideration and be clever in what you do.
“So it is not ideal but there will probably be more dew on Saturday and the ball will be wet so it might be difficult conditions again so hopefully the Newlands faithful can stay faithful and stand with us and hopefully we can up our performance,” he said.
The experienced midfielder was forthright in his assessment of his team’s limp second-half performance against the Cheetahs last week, and said that the focus for the Stormers is on producing an 80-minute performance.
The game against the Cheetahs was not the only instance this season where they bolted out of the blocks to build up a significant advantage in the first half only to fall off the pace after half-time, so they are keen to show that they are able to make the opposition pay once they have them on the back foot.
De Villiers said that his team is desperate to start dominating from start to finish, as if they are able to apply pressure for a full 80 minutes then they may be able to run in the tries that everyone wants to see.
“We got such a a good start [against the Cheetahs] and got into a position to be quite well ahead but then sort of let it go, so we definitely see it as something we need to work on and if we can put 80 minutes of rugby together like we did in the first 40 then we will be a lot happier than we are at the moment,” he said.
However, they will be up against a hungry Waratahs side who would have been stung by their last-gasp loss to the Bulls in Sydney last week and De Villiers said that his team will have to be switched on if they want to notch another win.
“They are probably not lying too good on the log so it is a bit of a must-win situation for them but they are a quality side. They do the basics really well, they have got a really good first-phase, a good defence and they can score tries as well.
“They have got a quality backline, there is no doubting that, we will be up for a big game on Saturday against quality opposition. It will be like a Test match, they have got a lot of internationals in their team,” he warned.
By Michael de Vries
