The Stormers have left themselves a mountain to climb after they crashed to a 33-24 United Rugby Championship (URC) defeat against Connacht on Saturday, coach John Dobson said.
Dobson lamented a loose display on home soil and said his team’s remaining games against Glasgow Warriors in Cape Town on Saturday and matches on the road against Ulster and Cardiff had become must-win affairs.
The build-up to Saturday’s clash was emotional for the Stormers after the sudden death of long-serving team manager Chippie Solomon.
“I think it was individual errors, and if we don’t make some of those mistakes, we don’t lose the game,” Dobson said.
“There was the bounce of a kick, a dropped restart and an intercept. Those moments cost us.
“I can’t really talk to the emotion, but I don’t think we can use Chippie and the tough week we had as an excuse for some of those mistakes. We were beaten.”
Dobson expressed disappointment after his team entered the contest with high hopes of a victory.
“To get nothing out of the Connacht game is very disappointing,” he said.
“We now have to win all three remaining games to get where we want to be, but that’s much easier said than done.
“First up is Glasgow and then two 4G pitch matches away against two teams competing for the top eight.
“We’ve put ourselves in a bit of a position now.
“The Stormers were loose throughout the game against Connacht.
“There were a couple of patches in the first half that we spoke about where we shuffled it around.
“We had their maul on the ropes, and at one instance we had a quick throw-in to Warrick Gelant, but then Damian Willemse threw a forward pass.
“Connacht then got the scrum and ended up scoring.
“I thought we were very loose.
“We said at halftime, let’s be more direct and limit the passing.
“But we kept shovelling the ball back repeatedly and conceded a penalty for sealing off.
“It felt at times we needed to invent to beat them, when in reality the template was there to do it because we saw it with our mauling getting on top.
“We had the last scrum; I know it’s their ball.
“The Stormers had a great tight five, and we didn’t move them a centimetre in a scrum we needed to win to get two log points, and we didn’t do that, so Connacht did well.”
Stormers captain Ruhan Nel said a lack of concentration had proved costly.
“I felt we defended well at certain times, and then there was just a lack of concentration due to simple decisions, which gave them either a penalty that led to an entry or we scored points and conceded soon after,” he said.
“That defeat is on us. I don’t think we can fault the plan or the understanding of it. That was 100% there. It was about execution.
“In the second half we probably became a bit individualistic. I don’t know, but we became desperate.”
Scorers:
Stormers 24: Tries: Evan Roos, Ntuthuko Mchunu and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu. Conversions: Feinberg-Mngomezulu (3). Penalty: Feinberg-Mngomezulu.
Connacht 33: Tries: Shamus Hurley-Langton, Paul Boyle, John Devine, Ben Murphy and Sean Naughton. Conversions: Sam Gilbert (3), Shaun Naughton.
Other URC scores:
Dragons 7 Bulls 47, Lions 54 Glasgow Warriors 12, Ospreys 21 Sharks 17.
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