Dobson proud of Stormers’ effort in loss to Bulls: ‘We have to fight for top 8 spot’

A candid Stormers Director of Rugby John Dobson admitted that his team were dominated at the set pieces, but was still immensely proud of their fight as they fell to a tight 33-32 defeat against the Bulls in their North-South United Rugby Championship (URC) derby at the Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.

The Bulls were the better side overall, but they made a slew of errors that kept the Stormers in the match, and in the end the hosts could have snatched a famous win if it wasn’t for the inaccuracy of their kickers, including Clayton Blommetjies missing a relatively straightforward match winning conversion with less than a minute left.

After the match the straight-talking Dobson admitted to the team’s failings, but was confident that they would be able to come back from the loss.

Done in the scrums

“We had a lot of chances at the end. But the truth is we got done in the scrums in the first half which put us under enormous pressure. We lost a lot of territory. I thought we fought back well and I can’t say much more,” said Dobson.

“The last 10 or 15 minutes there were a couple of holding penalties and we were a bit inaccurate at the breakdown. They are a really good jackling team. But I must give enormous credit to their scrum. I think that put us right on the back foot throughout this game.

“We put in a lot of fight to get off the canvass and we probably could have won it.”

Despite the loss, the Stormers picked up two losing bonus points, for scoring five tries and finishing within seven points, which moved them up two places to 10^th on the URC table, just behind Ulster in ninth ahead of them on points difference.

Top four race

Although they are arguably out of the race to finish in the top four in the URC, Dobson admitted that the top eight was now non-negotiable, regardless of the injury crisis they have found themselves in over most of the season.

“We can definitely pick ourselves up. We had a whole team that didn’t play today (because of injuries). This team, with what we had, did a lot of credit to Stormers rugby today. That’s my view,” said Dobson.

“We got done in the scrums by a very good Bulls team who were very good at the breakdown. But this team has fight, and fought until the end, no matter what anyone says about them. It has been tough but we will be back.

“We have two tough ones (coming up) in Joburg and Pretoria (against the Lions and Bulls), a possibly winnable tour (to Europe) and then a lekker home run like we did two years ago.

“Today was probably the end of that top four dream, and we just have to fight our way into the top eight. Anything less than that will be disappointing, no matter what our injury situation is.”

Back to the drawing board

Stormers captain Salmaan Moerat, who led his team well and scored a try in the match, was disappointed with the loss, and explained that it was back to the drawing board for them on Monday.

“It could have gone either way. Our scrum didn’t function today and that was a big part of our game. We knew what was coming, but we underdelivered there,” said Moerat.

“So I am utterly disappointed even though it could have gone either way. But it shows you the beauty of the game, you aren’t ever really out of it until the final whistle.

“We showed real guts, especially when running the ball from the back end of the field and knowing that we needed to keep the ball in hand. I think that’s a positive we can take out of this. The guys never really gave up, but back to the drawing board for us on Monday.”