REACTION: Stormers Director of Rugby John Dobson expressed his disappointment after his side’s defeat to Ospreys at the Brewery Field in the United Rugby Championship, and pinpointed which area(s) he felt they lost the game.
It was an all too familiar sight for Stormers fans on Saturday when their team failed to record yet another win on overseas soil – falling short to the side who upset them in Cape Town last season in form of the Ospreys.
Dobson didn’t see the result as all doom and gloom and felt that there were some positives in the match, but that they let another result ‘slip’ on tour.
“It’s weird, it’s a similar sort of outcome to the start of last year’s tour where we let games slip, but I felt better about this,”Dobson said.
“I felt that a lot of stuff we’ve been working on was there, some really nice performances,”
“I think Andre Hugo-Venter was a couple of inches short [of the line] and we gave away a tough sealing-off penalty and we didn’t get a chance to win the game in the 78th minute.” Dobson added.
He was full of praise for the home side, especially on attack, and felt that his own side showed some promise but failed to deliver the result.
“I felt that the Ospreys in the second-half were really good, a great strike move off the lineout which is going to hurt Normy [Norman Laker] but I felt there were some really good signs, but we really wanted to win the game so it’s disappointing.”
Dobson confirmed that there will be some reinforcements in selection ahead of their clash with Zebre – who famously beat Munster on Saturday.
“Sazi Sandi will come back and Warrick [Gelant] will come back into the mix,” Dobson confirmed.
“If you look at today’s game [Saturday] and where we went wrong, one of the areas of remedying it is selection, whether that’s Warrick coming in at No.15 or on the bench or Warrick coming in at No.15 and Damian [Willemse] moving up.”
Dobson pinpointed where he felt things went pear-shaped for his side.
“If we lose the lineouts, which we didn’t today [Saturday], we were excellent at 100%, and if we lose contestables where we were really poor today, we don’t win games.”
“One of our challenges up here in the Northern Hemisphere is the contestable game, I thought we got absolutely hammered there today that probably cost us the game.”
The Stormers boss also gave his verdict on rookie flyhalf Jurie Mathee.
“He’s still a developing flyhalf, maybe a couple of his options were poor, we didn’t exit as well as we could’ve.”
“I don’t want to criticize a player, because it was a tough evening for him but he was solid, there’s still potential, I still think he’s got a nice temperament, but it just didn’t really flow his way today [Saturday].”
