adminCape Town – The Stormers will be hard at work this week, a short one at that, as they look to bounce back from Saturday’s disappointing Super Rugby defeat to the Lions in Johannesburg.
The Capetonians went down 34-10 at Ellis Park, having trailed by 19-0 twenty minutes into the game and 22-10 at half-time.
“We, as a group, are very unhappy with our performance,” Stormers coach Allister Coetzee told the Stormers’ official website.
“We’re the first to admit that we were outplayed… but credit must go to the Lions for their performance. They had us under pressure from the start and we weren’t able to get into our stride at all.
“It was one of those horror starts, a defensive blunder from us leading to their try, then (Marnitz) Boshoff landing two drop-goals and (then) two penalties. It wasn’t an ideal start to our season – a rude awakening for us, but we know that we have a lot of hard work to do this week in order to bounce back.”
When asked how the Stormers could make things right, Coetzee commented: “We conceded 25 turnovers – 10 of those coming on attack.
“In other words, we had ten potential opportunities to put points on the board, but managed to lose the ball instead of making it count on the scoreboard.
“Defensively, the Lions were also very, very good,” he added, “and they had us under pressure at the breakdown where we were (uncharacteristically) very poor.”
Coetzee was happy with his team’s set-piece performance, pointing to just one lineout loss in 80 minutes and some powerful scrummaging from the Stormers, but there was still be plenty to work on at training yesterday and today.- Sport24.
Online Reporter