It was another bad day at the office on the road for the Stormers, who unfortunately bucked the trend for the defending United Rugby Championship (URC) champions after they were pipped 24-17 by Glasgow Warriors on Sunday afternoon.
It’s a breathtaking match, full of exciting running rugby and it’s unfortunate that you have to lose in the end, but the Stormers will be very disappointed to have lost the game they also had a chance to win for most of the match.
Although they have an unblemished home record this season, in the tour against the European side, the Stormers now sit with one win, one draw and two losses from four games, which clearly shows the struggle on the road.
Against Glasgow it was also an almost full strength Stormers side that played in the match, but in the end they were still undone by the home side.
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“It was just a really bad day at the office against a team that really played. They went deep to get us around. They did well against the speed of our line,” Stormers coach John Dobson explained after the match.
“He did well and we were very poor when he made double tackles and slowed the ball down. His ball was very quick.
“We have to give them credit, they knew we were going to come at line speed and they came around us.”
Off day to Libbok
Stormers flyhalf Manie Libbok, usually the go-to man and dead-eye from the kicking tee, also had a dead night with the boot, missing three kicks on goal which cost the team seven points.
Those two kicks are also considered bread and butter for Libbok, but Dobson does not want to blame the pivot that he claims has won many games for the team.
“There was a swirling wind and it rained and rained throughout the game. But yeah, I’m surprised Manie didn’t miss that kick. He’s won a lot of games with the boot, so maybe it wasn’t his day,” Dobson said.
Another consideration is the strain the South African players are under, with a 40+ hour flight in economy class creating a disruption in an away game, but Dobson doesn’t want to play the wrong game.
“I’m not going to blame the trip. Maybe with more practice time, we could have gotten better with coming out. We were really poor coming out of our own half,” Dobson said.