" The Stormers may have won in Bloemfontein for the first time since 2012, but coach Robbie Fleck was far from pleased with what he saw from his charges in their 20-10 win over the Cheetahs on Saturday.
It was a match in which the Stormers struggled to get going. Tested at the scrums throughout the clash, the pack was under constant pressure as the backline was starved of front-foot ball.
A win is a win, as they say, but for Fleck there is much to consider.
“It’s always tough for us to come up here and play the Cheetahs but it’s a nice win for us and we’ll take that,” he said after the match.
“But overall, not happy with our performance. As good as we were last week (against the Bulls), we weren’t as accurate as we should have been and credit to the Cheetahs … they got under our skin for the first 60.”
Fleck was pleased with what he saw in the last quarter of the match as Sikhumbuzo Notshe’s try and a couple of Kurt Coleman penalties put the game to bed.
“We weren’t accurate. I think we were too loose in that first half but the half-time chat was good and we were better in the second half,” he said.
“We just weren’t clinical. “It was just a matter of having patience, and we didn’t have that in that first 60.”
Stormers lock Eben Etzebeth was named man-of-the-match, but even that was little comfort to the Stormers coach. “Eben did play well … he was strong and physical,” said Fleck.
“But overall I felt that our pack didn’t play as well as it should have. We were slow to react … our first half set piece wasn’t good enough.”
One major concern for the Stormers was the knee injury that forced flyhalf Robert du Preez off the field in the second half. Fleck said after the match that he did not know the extent of the injury, but a look at Du Preez’s face as he limped off was not promising."
It was not a good match and the problem was the forward pack not functioning to maximum capacity and a useless center in De Jongh - he really played poorly.
The other deficiency was with their loosies. Notshe was good enough - but Burger was not - time to move on I believe.
The Stormers are playing the Sharks coming Saturday and the Sharks are going to exploit the loosie and center deficiencies to the maximum.
