The Stormers will kick off their Super Rugby proceedings against the Hurricanes at Newlands next week
Stormers assistant coach Dawie Snyman says much of their focus has gone into conditioning their players to play for 80 minutes and to win tough games in the last 10 minutes.
It was last year’s Bloemfontein falter against the Free State Cheetahs that motivated Snyman and Co to focus on this area after they let a 26-12 half-time lead slip to a 33-38 Currie Cup defeat.
“That Currie Cup game against the Free State last year was probably the first game we looked at when we started planning our off-season and the pre-season. I feel that over the last few years Province would do well until the 60th minute and have a big lead but then we’d finish the game by two points or sort of level,” Snyman said.
“So our focus is really to play the full 80 minutes and condition our guys to do that so that in those tough games we can win it in the last 10 minutes. “Against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein we dropped off, so that’s been our focus.”
The Stormers’ attacking form was a concern in 2019 and they didn’t have the brightest try-scoring stats either, something the backs coach says they’ve done a lot of research on as they prepare for the 2020 Super Rugby season.
“We’ve been working really hard to improve. After last season we had a look at our attack and where we went wrong, we also did quite a bit of research and spent some time at Saracens.
“We looked at the World Cup, at different styles of play and then at what we have,” he said.
The Stormers will kick off their Super Rugby proceedings against the Hurricanes at Newlands next week, and Snyman added that he’s feeling good about the team’s chances of creating try-scoring opportunities.
“We went in-depth with where we are at at the moment, and we showed at the weekend that we can create opportunities (in their SuperHero Sunday win against the Sharks), although we didn’t always take those opportunities.
“We just need to make sure that we get it right next week Saturday, but I’m confident that we’ll get into positions to score tries and get that last bit of decision-making there.”
“While we were at Saracens, Sean Maitland, who’s playing in the Premiership, actually joked and said in Super Rugby the guys just want to play, so that’s the attitude in Super Rugby – it’s a fast game and we have to try and match that.”
