Sometimes they say it is beneficial to go backwards in order to go forward … sadly for the Stormers, it tends to be a principle of dubious value in crunch rugby matches.
It did them no favours in an embarrassingly one-sided Vodacom Super Rugby semi-final exit, when a white flag was effectively raised at only the second set scrum of the evening.
This Match report was done by Rob Houwing
Their defeat by the unexpected margin of 19 points left them as a “nearly” side once more: indeed, a notch worse than last year, in cold factual terms, when you consider that at least then they were beaten finalists.
Apart from a first 15 minutes or so of reasonable promise in this semi, the Stormers were well and truly walloped, to the point that they were progressively left lateral, clueless, dispirited and simply playing cling-on rugby, pinned to their own territory, on notably leaden legs.
And this against a visiting outfit supposedly vulnerable physically and mentally because of their unprecedented degree of globe-trotting as a result of natural disaster in stronghold Christchurch early this year.
Instead it was the Stormers forwards labouring to lineouts, minus energy or steely body language, and wincing every time also at the prospect of further scrummaging savagery.
They have gone to great lengths in Stormers/Western Province circles over the past two or three years to throw off a long-time and once justified reputation for fallibility among the all-important tight five. And in purely South African terms, they have more or less achieved this – as evidenced in no small measure by Schalk Burger’s team topping the local conference in new-look Super Rugby, where they made defiant statements at forward in big derbies.
Alas, all that has probably done is simultaneously serve pre-World Cup notice that, for all their natural, traditional brawny attributes, too many of our country’s most highly-rated tight forwards play a mysterious second fiddle to New Zealand opponents for technique and pack cohesiveness.
Only last week, an all-Springbok Sharks front row was left ego-bruised in Nelson by the Crusaders’ boiler-room quartet of Wyatt Crockett, Corey Flynn and the two Franks brothers who hand out never-ending punishment on the tighthead side as one handily, inevitably replaces the other at reasonably advanced stages of matches. (It is a bit like being left punch-drunk by Muhammad Ali, only for Mike Tyson to be let loose to perform the KO job.) And it was no different – make that markedly worse, in truth – as the
Stormers were latest visitors to the set-piece “abattoir”.
An especially spectacular, near running retreat by the host eight at scrum-time, not long after the 20-minute mark, basically set the tone for the Crusaders’ mastery of
the department.
It wasn’t the only reason for their dominance but it went a mighty long way: scrumming woes, after all, so often send collywobbles right through the team ranks.
The Stormers’ cause here wasn’t aided in any way, of course, by the absence of their brick outhouse, first-choice No 8 Duane Vermeulen and then captain Burger’s non-emergence from the tunnel for the second half.
Increasingly after the break, even as their scrum creaked to an alarmingly growing extent, they kept introducing relative lightweights to the hard-pressed pack off the bench – Deon Fourie took over from the beefier Tiaan Liebenberg at hooker in a desperate quest to add X-factor in the game-chase, questionable temporary recruit Schalk Brits entered the loose forward equation and mostly strutted his twinkle-toed stuff among the backline, and poor novice Steven Kitshoff was suddenly expected to turn Superman in place of Wicus Blaauw at loosehead.
None of these changes, it must be said, served any use in trying to earn the Stormers desperately needed, better tracts of real estate.
In mitigation, even the Crusaders management enthused after the match — such an anti-climax for most of the crowd of 48 017 — that they had probably surpassed even their own customarily high standards for forward efficiency on a pitch made pretty heavy after days of generous rain in the Western Cape.
“I didn’t think the Stormers rolled over,” said coach Todd Blackadder charitably. “But we were really, really good at the set-piece tonight.
“Yes, our scrum (this season) is huge … but our lineout defence was awesome too; we put a lot of pressure on the Stormers’ own ball.”
Earlier, appreciative captain Richie McCaw had told television viewers: “Our whole tight five set the attitude.”
Stormers coach Allister Coetzee, meanwhile, could hardly be anything but magnanimous, although he did find time to bristle at a suggestion that it had been a “men against boys” meeting.
“There’s all reason to be criticised tonight and I take it on the chin. But I don’t think there was stage-fright or anything (like that).
Sport 24
Sorry Mr Coetzee, you have it totally wrong. It was indeed men against boys. Battle hardened determined men at that.
The lack of Duvenhage showed, and the scrum and line out were just not up to it.
One of the most dissapointing games I’ve watched all season. I really expected the Stormers to have a bit more heart.
It seemed almost as if they believed all the BS that the travel would render the nmen from Christchurch inept, and that all they had to do was pitch up.
IMO the inclusion of Brits was a failure, apart from the one half break and decent offload that neary put Fourie into the corner vie Louws underhand pass, he did relatiuvely little, and I’m sure most will agree that his performance goes to strengthen the belief that Super Rugby is harder and faster than both Aviva Premiership and Heineken Cup Rugby.
Ah well, at least the Light Five has re-emerged to live another season.
Tough luck Stormers. SA Rugby suddenly on the back foot again in a RWC year.
Cheers all. Time to go to work and earn some money.
Great performance by the Saders.
Our “bok” backline was pathetic and we will have major problems come RWC.
Look at the bok backline vs :
9 Cowan
10 Carter
11 Guildford
12 SBW/ Nonu
13 Fruean/ Smith
14 Rene Ranger
15 Israel Dagg
And
9 Genia
10 Cooper
11 Ioane
12 Giteau/ Barnes/ O Connor
13 Adam Ashley Cooper
14 Rod Davies
15 Kurltey Beale
We are so screwed.
Am I delusional, or has Jean de Villiers lost a yard or two of pace in the last 18 months?
Didn’t see him make a line break once yesterday.
I REALLY fear for the Bok front row in the WC. While we seem to have an abundance of world class hookers, we don’t seem to have ANY technically proficient props AT ALL.
We can all be assured that on the heavy fields of New Zealand in early Autumn, scrummaging is going to count for a lot, and the All Blacks, Poms, Irish, French and Argies are going to be well prepared.
Even Georgia will have a better scrummaging front row than SA.
Skande…….
Please everybody remind me NEVER NEVER to back the Stormers again in a crunch match, especially at the end of a season. They blew my good position in Superbru to pieces!
Look at their record over the last 8 weeks. The only team of substance – read in the top half of the log – which they have won is the Sharks. Pathetic, in the same mould as the Proteas. Big time choking when it counts most. If they lost by a few points and came to the party i would not have logged in, now i feel compelled to say the following:
Habana is NOT past his sell by date, he had a good game in a team where the extra effort required in a final or semi final was lacking.
Burger – and Jean DV – has no idea what the difference is between a round robin game or a knock-out game of this proportion, let neither of them EVER be Bok captains, puleeeaaase!
As an old Bull supporter, meaning not the current fanatical bunch dirtying the name of the old Blue Bulls in every stupid statement they make, i am proud of the turnaround the Bulls showed the last 8 weeks. They lost to the Sharks for one reason only, that was in changing their match winning recipe of the previous games, i.e. run with the ball. But come knock-out time at least they know that if 3 points are on offer YOU TAKE IT MR BURGER AND DE VILLIERS! Especially the 12 points offered to them through the match by penalties.
Time the WP management get that simple message across to their team, else they will just keep on being a big mouth team without substance.
And who said Peter Grant is the next Bok no 10? What has he got to offer more than what we have in Steyn, James or Lambie? Nada if you ask me……
@ Pam Anderson:
nou wat is fout met fdp steyn de jong mossie hougaard aplon jpp sit daar by jdv fransie ruan butch,die cheetahs het almal gewys wat om met sonny dr@l te maak,net jammer die natallers en die stormers se afrigters is te DOF om dit te sien
Phweeeeew… eishhhh…. haibo!
Man, I watched the match on the big screens at Innie-bos in Nelspruit… in between copious amounts of sletsappies, jeagie bombs, tequilas… did I mention tequilas & jeagie bombs… hehehe
I have NEVER seen the Stormers kak sooooooooooo badly in the scrums, not even in the years of the LIGHT 5…
Respect to the Saders and hearty congratulations to them, they were ready, they were awesome.
It is this type of PAKSLAE (because that’s what the Stormers were given) which could put the Stormers right back in that dark era of infamous fame or notiriaty for having a very, very kak tight 5.
Schreuder did nothing wrong, but man, he was just a link… no more.
Huursoldaatjie (Schalk Brits)… nothing much from him either.
Grant… well, when the crunch is on we see clearly why he is nowhere near Bok coulors!
Bekker… just another ordinary lock who likes to play amongst the centers!
Stormpoppies props…. go find some other jobs fellas… you are total YOBS, FAERIES, TELLETUBBIES… whimps!
Jaque Fourie tried hard..
Jantjes… retire my dear fella, you are pulling the team down!
I so wanted the Stormers to win.. in stead the Stormpoppies were like bunny rabits in the head lights… outplayed, outmuscled, outsmarted, outscored…
Someone somewhere compared Stegman with Louw, the Stegman man gave these stat through. I enjoyed it, for obvious reasons.
You see, I don’t mind responding to you:
Louw played >200 minutes more than Stegmann.
A)Yet Louw only managed to hit 435 rucks at 0.34 per minute.
Stegmann hit 561 (most in the Super 15) at 0.53 per minute.
B)Louw made a handling error every 9 handle counts.
Stegmann made one every 27 counts- much neater.
C)Louw had a gainline success rate of 59%
Stegmann had a success rate of 79%
D)Louw had a tackle success rate of 91%
Stegmann of 95%
Louw in his role focusses more on carrying than Stegmann, he made 5.3 metres per carry, Stegmann 4.3 per carry. But the rest of the stats say that Stegmann was the neater player, and depending on your source, gave away one handful of penalties more than Louw for the entire season, or just one. For a player that actually by far outplaed Louw in the department where the majority of the penalties by these players are conceded, Stegmann gave his team a lot more benefit from his work rate even with 1 exra penalty for the entre season.
So, it doesn’t matter how you look at it, or what your opinion of Steggies is, he worked harder than any other flanker, and he is neater in terms of tackling and carrying and handling than Louw. You can’t argue with that.
So how is Stegmann average? Stegmann will be forward of the year again for the Bulls this year. Average in that the Bulls didn’t make the play-offs? So you’d rather see Louw start at 6 for the Boks? Good for you.
@ superBul:
maar stegman kom uit bloem en speel vir die bulle en low kom uit DIE kaap en is jan pickaart te klein seun en daarom is dit sy God gegewe reg om in die bok span te wees,gelukkig weet ons wie DIE ses flank in die land is,en stegman staan net agter hom in die ry.
@ smallies72:
Het jy goeie nuus oor Brussow? Ja as hy op sy beste vorm is sal ek nie huiwer oor hom nie, hy kan maar.
@ superBul:
ek glo hy sal reg wees jong,daar was n kans dat hy vir die stormers game sou bench so hy is dalk al fiks, en juan hardloop ook al,ek het hom nou die dag in bloem gesien,en hy het heel normaal geloop.ek is vol vertroue dat al twee reg sal wees
Praat van die duiwel, sien nou daar is n berig op nuus dat hy binnekort reg is, gaan gou lees en hier post.
As he slammed into Jaque Fourie, Zac Guildford had no idea he was about to break the hearts of the Stormers’ fans.
While the 48,000-strong crowd at Newlands could see on the big screen that Guildford’s tackle had dislodged the ball from Fourie’s grasp as he dived for the try line in the 54th minute, the Crusaders left wing was oblivious to all the fuss.
“I didn’t know, I thought he might have scored it. I thought it was about 70-30 in his favour, I was still pretty unsure but it is all good,” Guildford said.
When television match official Shaun Veldsman ruled out the try, you could almost have heard a plastic beer mug clattering along the concrete terraces in the breeze as the crowd sat stunned.
To ALL people I have to apologize. Truely. Before the game I admitted to a few close friends that if I had a few extra ponde to spare, I would put it on the Crusaders (If you dont know by now, Im a Stormers fan). However I tried to stay ever positive and gave the Stormers some kind of chance.
The !K*K! is, they never gave themselves a chance!
I actually honestly believe we missed Bricky. We missed that Mongrel! He may not be what he was, but he has a Fcuk You attitude that NO ONE of the Stormers 22 had! Not one! Nadda, zip, nokol. Once that intercept was scored our self believe, body language, respect for: possesion, territory and discipline went WHAP, out the window.
Burger (when he was on the field) was not the same player he was in the last 6 weeks of the comp. Maybe too scared to be penelised. JdV was going no where fast. In fact, except Habana (ironic) the whole backline (Bekker included) was so flat that I did not even see the changes until a few minutes after it happened!
The juniors in the team you could see tried their all. The seniors though… clueless, MIA, nadda! Powder Puffs! Bullied!
Rassie and co… if you wanna buy a player for next season, buy a captain. I dont care if its Corne Krige, just buy someone with ballas AND common sense.
FCUK THIS SIHT!
I can go on forever about this game. Yet while not taking anything away from the Saders, all Im gonna say is. Choke, choke, choke, choke, choke, choke, choke, choke, choke, choke, choke, choooooooooooooooke, choke!
Now on to better news.
While the Saders pretty muched bullied all three SA’s top teams (Stormers x2, Bulls x1, Sharks x2) When you combine the best in SA, and bring back guys from injury, it makes for pretty reading.
(lets focus on the backline for now)
1.) Gurthro Steenkamp/ Tendai Mtwarira
2.) John Smit / B.Du Plessies
3.) BJ Botha WP Nel
4.) Bakkies Botha/ Flip van der Merwe
5.) Victor Matfield/ Andries Bekker (net net)
6.) Schalk Burger/ Heinrich Brussouw
7.) Juan Smith/ Willem Alberts
8.) Danie Russouw/ Duane Vermeulen
We all know who is going to be the forwards for the All Blacks. We know what they are capable of. Now lets see what they can do against the BEST SA has to offer. That is, of we can choose the right combos. Unlikely.
@ Greenpoint-Gunner:
GG Respect for you, in fact maybe all Stormers fans HERE on RT might have that attitude. Dont try and tell the rest of us, BUT remember we made it further than you(semi,s), where were you…bla, bla , blaaaaaah
The fact is like you said above , they failed miserably, and it is another full year before they may have a chance to do it again.(not failing :LOL: playing in a semi). The fact that they beat other SA sides means nothing. They failed too but that is not going to make the Stormers feel better?
Sad way they went on Saturday, within 20 minutes it was all over, after that mauled scrum the white flag went up.
Now is the time to give answers to-
why so few tries( Sat also outscored 4/1
many more questions will follow
It wont help to compare the Stormers season with that of the other SA teams. The only team that made any progress was the Cheetahs.
the best thing the stormers couldve done on saturday was to return the money of those supporters who went to newlands to watch that shit!! and dont try to tell me that this is a “learning curve”, mr. coetzee, or that “we just need to learn to win those games” … we were never in it to even have a chance of winning it!! in fact, we were a fuckin disgrace!! just going belly-up like that!!
…
and before anyone go on about the “championship side” we were up against, this is not the first time we were f*cked in a “final”. the same happened last year vs bulls (s14 final) and sharks (cc final)!! f*ckin chockers!! chockers!! chockers!! asswipes!! ballerinas!! f*ckin disgraceful performance!! pathetic!! hope all of you f*ckin choke on the first thing you buy to eat/drink from your f*ckin paycheck … but then, you’ve done that alrady on saturday night!!
muslim sa on sunday announced that they will hold a march on monday where they will burn their springbok jerseys. says a police spoekesman that they’re not worried about the march or the burning of springbok jerseys as the most jerseys burnt will be about 3 or 4. says the spokesman: “had the announced that they were going to burn their all black jerseys .. yes, THEN WE WOULDVE WORRIED!!” 😀
..
goooooooodmorning everyone!!
#18
spoekesman shouldve been spokesman
and
“had THEY announced … 😳
o, and congrats to the crusaders … you were awesome on saturday!!
hey, waas ammal ‘an ve’môre? kô ma yt! kô ma yt!! ek ganie met julle bekly nie!! eks al laaaaaaaaaankal in ñ bietere mood!!
I am disappointed in the Stormers,they were really nowhere.
If Rassie stays with them, he will have to spend serious money buying a few props.Brok and co are just plain kak.
Ashley wrote:
Remember he was under school teacher Jake for 4 years, learning is more important than winning.
super @ 23
i fear that us stormers supporters will hear this excuse a few more times in future … yes, theres an improvement from previous years, but like in the previous big occasions (bulls s14 final and sharks cc final, both 2010) we were nowhere in those games!! now wheres the learning in that? no allistair, get a “kopdokter” for your team, and soon!!
#24
shouldve been … “but like in the previous big occasions (bulls s14 final and sharks cc final, both 2010) we were nowhere in THIS game” … sorry guys, bit emotional!!
25@ Ashley:
Ash, Kalmeer. Dink ‘n bietjie oor die arme Leeus onderseuners.
Ons het ‘n k@k span, en nog k@kker bestuur.
Eintlik moet die Stormers ‘n bietjie “self appraisal” gaan doen en probeer uitvind hoekom kry hulle “stagefright” in die groot games.
Soos jy se, miskien ‘n kopdokter.
scrumdown @ 26
eks kalm broe, eks kalm … net baie bed*nnerd, maar kalm!! 👿
27@ Ashley:
Helloooooooooooo Winegums!
gbs @ 28
😆
ok, ouens
uit vir eers
chat hopelik later weer!!
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