When the team was announced last week - I had a horrible feeling about the outcome. I was horrified about especially the selection of -
* Coleman at flyhalf;
* Leyds as a wing.
Coleman is a very average Vodacom Cup level player totally unfit to play on Super 15 level. Leyds last year went to the Force to play for them, was rarely used and apparently was told by them he is not acceptable to continue at the Force. Not acceptable by the Force apparently make him first choice acceptable by the Stormers.
There were other selections that also gave me reason to worry. I wrote last week that Kolbe is just not big enough physically to play on Super 15 level and Beeno is likely right - if he wants to play on Super 15 level - it should be as a scrummie. A worrying selection always is Juan de Jongh - a harmless and gugely ineffective 13 on Super Rugby level.
The effect of the above was clear. The above selections all refer to the backline. During the game De Allende was outstanding - he was better than the celebrated S-B Williams. Van Wyk had a good game and Schreuder was acceptable.
Insofar as defense is concerned - there were huge whole in defense that De Allende and Van Wyk tried to fill. Time and again they had to try and cover for the botched tackle attempts or even non-attemps to tackle of the other backline players mentioned above - unfortunately not always successfully.
Now lets get into more details about the handicaps in the Stormers backline.
* Coleman was an outright disaster. In the case of two relieving kicks from within the Stormers 22 - he failed to find touch. In a third case he did find touch - but so near the touchline that the Chiefs easily managed a quick throw-in. All three attempts led to counter-attacks by the Chiefs and tremendous pressure on the Stormers. The net result was a swing of 17 points in favour of the Chiefs.
* Leyds was put into the clear once and made about 20 meters. For the rest he was totally ineffective and his defense was a mess. he mostly did not even attempt tackles on opponents and leaft defense to other players.
* Kolbe was a defensive disaster - the Chiefs players just pushed him aside as if he was not there.
* De Jongh had one good ball carry after De Allende put him in the clear. For the rest he was an attacking disaster and he was routinely carried back in tackles - putting his team under pressure. His tackles was so weak - it was a serious problem as well. At one critical stage in the game, while the Stormers was attacking - he just knocked on a perfectly passed ball to him.
The Tight 5 had a top game - completely over-shadowing the Chiefs - both in line outs and in scrums. The loosies was average and had some good moments - but they were ineffective inasmuch as there tackle count was extremely low for a loosie combination (16 attempts of which 14 were successful) and they failed top apply pressure on th Chiefs players, especially Cruden. When Burger came on fairly early in the second half he was no improvement and made no impression in the game - matter of fact he was worse than Kolisi - and it was clear he was suffering from the dreaded "Japanese Club Rugby" syndrome.
In general a game in which the Tight 5 forwards completely over-shadowed their counter-parts, the loosies were average, but the team was badly let down by 4 of their 7 backline players.
