Stormers director of rugby John Dobson said his side strayed from the basics and, in so doing, committed many individual errors during their United Rugby Championship defeat to Connacht on Saturday.
The 33-24 result at Cape Town Stadium came on the back of an emotional week, where the Stormers mourned the loss of long-serving team manager Christopher ‘Chippie’ Solomon.
In the build-up, Dobson said he had asked the players “what would Chippie want” from their performance against Connacht.
‘We were beaten’
The team formed a guard of honour for the bereaved relatives on match day, and Dobson and a few players were in tears during the tribute.
But the coach said they could not use the emotions as an excuse for a performance riddled with individual errors.
“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,” he said.
“We were very loose. There were patches in the first half where we just tried to shovel the ball around without doing any work.
“At half-time, we said let’s be more direct, maybe a maximum of one pass.”
The Stormers missed a golden opportunity to retain pole position on the log, after Glasgow Warriors were thrashed 54-12 by the Lions at Ellis Park.
Stormers try to reinvent the wheel
Captain Ruhan Nel said players became individualistic and more desperate as the game went on.
This was seen in the dying minutes when Connacht were 26-24 ahead. The Stormers commited everything to the attack but were caught out when flyhalf Sean Naughton intercepted a ball in Conancht’s half and ran all the way to the Stormers try line.
“I don’t think we can fault the plan or the understanding of it,” he said. “That was 100% there. It was about execution.”
The Stormers remain second on the log, but are now level on points with Leinster, who beat Ulster with a bonus point in Belfast.
The Cape side next host wounded Glasgow at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Then, after a break for the Champions and Challenge Cups, they travel to Ulster and Cardiff for their final league-phase matches.
