John Dobson is confident the DHL Stormers will rebound from a “horror show” performance in their first Vodacom URC loss to the Bulls in Pretoria. DYLAN JACK reports.
The DHL Stormers’ seven-game winning streak in the North-South derby came crashing down as the Vodacom Bulls powered to a bonus-point victory at a packed Loftus Versfeld on Saturday night.
The visitors endured a difficult start to the match, falling 19-5 behind after 30 minutes, conceding too many soft penalties and making avoidable errors.
Speaking after the match, Dobson bemoaned a lack of discipline, accepting that the Stormers weren’t up to their normal standard.
“That first half hour was probably one of our worst performances in terms of discipline,” Dobson said. “I think after 12 minutes, we were on five penalties.
“You can’t play against a team as good as the Bulls like that. I don’t know where it came from. It was remarkably poor.
“It was always just when we started clawing our way back into the game, we would just do something silly. We were uncharacteristically ill-disciplined. It was an almost lazy performance.
“They have a strong lineout contesting team. Coming up here, we always knew we would be under some pressure. It wasn’t good enough by us at all against a good Bulls team.
“I’ve just never seen things go wrong like that. Kicking directly into touch, losing virtually every contestable, Manie [Libbok] sending kick-offs into touch or not 10 metres. It was a horror show…it was car crash after car crash.”
The defeat has left the Stormers 10 points behind the Bulls on the overall Vodacom URC table, but only four points separate them from fourth place.
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As poor as the Stormers were in the opening 30 minutes, they showed plenty of guts to cut the deficit to just four points at half time and there were several wasted opportunities in the second half.
“What gives us some solace, is that we wanted to turn it around and get back into the game and we could,” Dobson said. “I thought Warrick [Gelant] was magnificent. Manie and Damian [Willemse] were good.
“I thought 19-15 was generous to us. But the way we dominated territory in the second half, we were waiting for the dam wall to break. It was a four-point game with us having all the momentum, but we gave away a penalty for those two no-arms charges into the ruck and they scored the try. I thought we were in it, but credit to the Bulls for how they closed it out.
“It’s done us damage, like the four-week tour, but with the alignment camp and not having a league match this week, hopefully a nice trip for those that go and then two weeks to get ready for Edinburgh, we will be fine.
“There are nuggets in this performance that show who we are.”
Photo: Ryan Wilkisky/BackpagePix
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Src: sarugbymag.co.za
