“But we were very disappointed. I am not sure what the Blues said, but in my mind they really hit their straps today.”
After the game, Stormers coach John Dobson said their performance against the Blues – a game in which they looked like “victims” – is a massive wake-up call ahead of their away game against the Sharks. And that cannot be doubted.
“It is a massive wake-up call. The most disappointing thing was that something we have prided ourselves on is our physicality and you guys have written about our character. Both were absent today. We began to look like victims. We just weren’t working hard enough.
“We were sliding off tackles and giving them yards on attack,” Dobson said. “It is a great wake-up call for what becomes a massive game against the Sharks.
“But we were very disappointed. I am not sure what the Blues said, but in my mind they really hit their straps today.”
The Blues were good, it was the game of the season for them, but the Stormers nobody could have anticipated what went down at Newlands on Saturday. The Stormers’ four-match unbeaten run ended in a way that was almost puzzling considering the results they had built up until round five.
They slipped tackles and the fact that the Blues kept them guessing featured prominently in the Stormers’ 33-14 defeat.
After the game, captain Steven Kitshoff said that even during training the guys just didn’t look switched on. Whether it was complacency or whatever else, it happened at the worst time.
It’s not a train smash, far from it. But how they go against the Sharks could certainly have a big say in how things go afterwards.
