Winless Stormers to head back to SA off worst game of season

The Stormers will be heading back to South Africa with their tail firmly between their legs after their 31-24 defeat to Cardiff in their final tour match on Friday night made sure they would end their opening European tour in the United Rugby Championship (URC) winless.

It was a dreadful second half showing that led to the disappointing loss, with Stormers coach John Dobson admitting it was their worst performance of the tour.

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The Stormers started the season well with a 35-33 win over the Lions at Ellis Park and then a thumping 52-7 win over Scarlets in Stellenbosch, but since they have hit the road in Europe it has all gone downhill.

They were beaten 20-9 by Glasgow Warriors in Scotland, 20-17 by Benetton in Italy and 10-3 by Munster in Ireland, but heading into the Cardiff game knew that a win would make it a decent tour.

Superb start

But despite tearing into an early 14-0 lead after a superb start to the match, and holding a 17-14 lead at halftime, the Stormers fell apart in the second half, particularly in the final 15 minutes of the match allowing Cardiff to snatch the win by taking the lead for the first time after the fulltime hooter.

“I didn’t expect us to play like that. It was by far our worst performance on tour, which is disappointing,” said a downcast Dobson after the match.

“Cardiff played with real fight and zip. They are busy with a rebuild and we saw some of ourselves in them, but we were extremely poor.

“We were absolutely dominant with a certain style of play and we were 14-0 up. I might be one out, but to get seven scrum put-ins in the second half just for us to lose the ball in contact is not good enough at URC level.

“It has been a poor tour. We all need to have a look at ourselves on what we could have done better. It’s a very disappointing way to finish the tour. It’s a disappointing tour.”

Early lead

After taking the lead in just the fourth minute, the Stormers led on the scoreboard until former Pumas flyhalf Tinus de Beer slotted a 63^rd minute penalty to level the scores at 24-all.

From that stage the Stormers basically fell apart as they became extremely rushed on attack and it was Cardiff that took advantage to crash over for the winning try in the 82^nd minute.

“We seemed to just want to make Hail Marys all the time and it is a really poor performance by us in that respect,” explained Dobson.

“I don’t know why we needed to do that. Just take the ball through the phases and eventually, they will crack and we will get a penalty and we go into the corner and have a go.”