BY CRAIG RAY - 27 May 2018 - 11:58
“Let’s be honest‚ the character shown by our team was unbelievable. “There are games when decisions go against you and games when they go against you. This season we haven’t been on the right side of a lot of decisions.”
“We haven’t been lucky this year but the guys kept fighting. When you’re defending with 13 men‚ it’s going to take its toll.
"The attitude of the players showed that culturally we are strong‚ they play for the jersey and as a coach you have to be happy with that.
Stormers coach Robbie Fleck is one of the few people that understands what Liverpool goalkeeper Loris Karius must be going through after witnessing his team implode on Saturday. We deserved our lead at halftime and I still believed we could’ve won our last game despite the red card.
The Stormers gave up a 17-7 lead thanks to two yellow cards and a red card on Saturday to lose 26-23 to the Lions at Newlands‚ extinguishing what little flicker of playoff light they had left.
Karius’ two howlers in the Champions League final in Kiev cost Liverpool two goals as Real Madrid won Europe’s showpiece tournament on the back of those keeping errors.
Karius was a desolate and isolated figure after the game and Fleck appears to be in a similar situation at the Stormers.
After his press briefing, the young Stormers mentor was seen sitting alone in the team dressing room‚ head in hands‚ clearly distraught after a season that has been dogged bad luck as well as bad mistakes.
On Saturday wing Raymond Rhule was red-carded for making contact with opposite number Ruan Combrinck in mid-air while flank Jaco Coetzee and centre JJ Engelbrecht earned yellow cards for dangerous tackles.
All the infringements happened between the 36th and 59th minutes.
“If you look at it [Rhule’s incident] from a safety point of view‚ and you connect with the head of another player‚ it’s a red card’” Fleck said.
“But I know there wasn’t any intent and ultimately it wasn’t great for the game‚ obviously.
“Our discipline was an issue. We spoke before the match that if we gave away too many penalties we would allow the Lions into the game. Look‚ some of the penalties against us were 50/50 calls.
“But we had a red card and two yellows‚ which makes it difficult. I can’t argue with Jaco Coetzee’s yellow coming after a warning‚ but in JJ’s case‚ the player did jump into the tackle and it was quite tough to control that.
“Generally we could have been better with our discipline‚ because we gave then chances to get into our half.
The Stormers‚ like all the SA franchises‚ have a break now before regrouping during the June Test window and Fleck vowed that his side would not roll over in their final two fixtures in July.
“We are out of it now. We thought we had a chance with the Bulls and Sharks losing before us this weekend but no longer‚” Fleck said.
“But we are still excited that when we get back together in a few weeks‚ with a full-strength squad‚ that we can finish the campaign off strong.” (Even if the last 2 campaigns are won, it would not be strong However, even that is unlikely)
