Nick Mallett
Former Springbok coach Nick Mallett says the DHL Stormers made wrong substitutions in their loss to the Chiefs at Newlands last Saturday.
The Stormers annihilated the Chiefs at scrum time, with Steven Kitshoff and Vincent Koch wrecking havoc.
The home side led 13 / 3 at one stage, but let things slip, eventually going down 28 / 19.
Alistair Vermaak and Frans Malherbe replaced Kitshoff and Koch in the 61st minute of the match, while Neil Rautenbach also replaced Scarra Ntubeni at hooker in the 63rd minute. These substitutions gave the Chiefs breathing room up front and enabled them to take control of proceedings.
Mallett was speaking in the SuperSport studio after the game and said the substitutions impacted negatively on the Stormers.
“The Stormers should’ve kept their pack together for as long as possible,” said Mallett. “The last 20 minutes (after the replacements) they didn’t dominate the Chiefs pack as they had done in the 60 minutes prior.
“The Stormers front row and scrum was the strongest part of their game and to take the 3 players off was a poor move. In a game as close as that, you don’t take off people who are dominating their opponents.”
Sport24
Would it really have mattered? Hindsight is clear 20 20 vision but the chiefs still scored a try even with their scrum going backwards at a rate of knots.
Even with the stormers domination in the scrum they were only leading by 3 points at half time.
The stormers needed a little extra in the loose because they were slipping off tackles like mad, so fresh legs was needed imo… Didnt work out though, but the writing was on the wall well before the 60th minute. The chiefs looked dangerous and as if they can score any moment the whole second half while the stormers didnt.
Also mcintosh came on and forced a penalty from koch! Not malherbe… The stormers were tired.
MacroBull wrote:
Agreed
Malherbe is ordinarily a powerful prop – can’t see that he weakened the Stormers’ scrum – also, scrumming is an 8-man thing, not just a frontrow thing, so why are the other replacements (at loose forward & lock) not also blamed by Mallett for the drop off in the Stormers’ scrumming, why only the replacement frontrowers?
PS: It is noticeable that ever since the Stormers’ 1st choice frontrow gained dominance this season, there are no more taunts about Scarra Ntubeni being too small …
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