Ou maaaaikie not too bad for an amatuer stirrer and one appreciates your fairly lame afforts and trusts that better will one day emmerge. Unfortunately for you I have expressed simialr saentiments in all casaes but Jantjes. Here I adopted a wait and see appraoch given he would be playing in better company.
The Stormers like the sharks had injuries to key players and that has led to close losses arising against inferior teams. Jantjes missing all those kicks did indeed ensure a loss against the bulle and frankly luck has not been on our side. Some crucal mistakes has also cost us games and bent kiwi refs have also played a part.
Ou maaaike what you fail to grasp is that the log is pretty condensed and a couple of wins more and the whole picture changes.Such are the vagarancies of sport to the point of the ludicrous.
You clearly are getting muddled with this statement:
"Which coach in the world would not have gone meticulously through the performance history of Jantjies and even Taute before contracting them? Taute one can understand 9Bwahhahahahahaha) - he had an excellent record at full back - then got injured and the Lions moved him to 13 - where he failed dismally before injury.
The release of CAt was a blunder and I am afraid ou Alistair once moore showed his lack of rugby acumen.
I agrree jantjes has cost us - the conclusion is that he does not have the head for the game. Makes too many errors. Whether this will change we shall see. Grat was vital too us but got injured. Another vital palyer was Tiaan.
Why Alistair dropped Allende boggles the mind.
Kolisi should not have been ahead of Deon Fourie at 6. Bezuidenhout should have been at hooker played very well when given the chance. However the clown Coetzee even preferred Scurra. I am afraid one big problem is the quota coach..
However down here we are made of sterner stull (as our two top ofthe log seaons bear testimony to) and we are NOT throwing in the towell yet. Read this and keep your powder dry:
Ex Superpsort:
They may have to do it the hard way like the Sharks almost did last year, but the DHL Stormers are not writing off their chances of this year being the one where they make good on their threat to win a Vodacom Super Rugby title.
A combination of bad luck and their own poor decision making robbed the Stormers of what would have been a deserved victory had they got over the line against the Blues in Albany at the start of the past weekend’s round of matches. They dominated long periods of the game, both in terms of possession and the physical hold they had over their opponents, but failed to make use of scoring opportunities.
Two late tries brought them back into the game after being down 15-3, to the extent that the Blues had to heave a massive sigh of relief when Elton Jantjies missed a last gasp chance to snatch victory with a drop-goal, leaving the Cape team short by just one solitary point. The 18-17 loss was the Stormers’ fifth defeat in nine starts, and they languish in 10th place with seven games to go.
This week is probably their last and very final chance if they want to challenge the Vodacom Bulls and Toyota Cheetahs for the South African conference title they won for the last two seasons, and thus book an easier passage through the play-offs. They are still not completely out of range of the Bulls and Cheetahs, who lead them by six and nine points respectively – in other words neither of them are more than two wins ahead and can still slip up.
However, both still have a bye to come, which means four automatic log points, something the Blls will profit from this coming weekend, to take them to 41 points. If the Stormers don’t beat the Waratahs in Sydney this week, it would mean they are 11 or 12 points behind with six games to play, and that may just be too many.
Stormers skipper Jean de Villiers though mentioned last week that it has been a funny competition, and that some “funny results” may still be on the cards and make the cut-off point for play-offs, which in the past has been around 60, lower than in the past. If the Stormers win most of their remaining games, not even all of them, they could still be in with a chance, and if they win all of them they might even still win the conference.
Coach Allister Coetzee has certainly not given up hope of doing that, telling the Cape media after the Albany defeat that although disappointed, he thought the Stormers still had “a big chance”.
“There’s still a lot of rugby to be played, and we are of the view that we are still really not out of this. There is still a big chance for us and we are still together, tight as a team, and we need to make sure that we get the result in the next game.”
That last bit, winning the next game, might be the difficult part for the Stormers. They play mostly home games after they get back from tour, and with players coming back from injury and the uncertainty over which type of game to play now behind them, they should fancy their chances of beating the Reds (home), Kings (away), Cheetahs (home), Kings (home) and Bulls (home). Although they lost at the weekend, they do still look like a team gaining momentum and haven’t yet played to their capabilities.
But the Waratahs are a different kettle of fish in the sense that they also look like they’re gaining momentum. They were perhaps unlucky to lose to the Bulls if you consider they scored three tries in that match, but they really found their range against the Southern Kings this past weekend. Even accounting for the perception that this was a game that the Kings, who have had to play above themselves every week, just never pitched, and will always get smashed on such days, the all-round energy, purpose, power and confidence of the Waratahs team marks them as an extremely difficult team to stop now that they have a bit of momentum.
They beat the Chiefs the last time they played at home, so the Stormers know they will be up against it. But there is the carrot of knowing that their schedule becomes much easier after that, and victory will lay the table for a possible winning run at home.
They are going to have to play at least some of those games without lock De Kock Steenkamp, who left the field against the Blues with a sternum injury that will see him miss four weeks of rugby. However, Eben Etzebeth had an influence on the game when he came on in the second half for his first Super Rugby appearance of the season.
The ability of flanks Don Armand and Rynhardt Elstadt to play lock if they are needed has seen Coetzee grab the opportunity to call up Gerhard van den Heever to boost his back three options for the last two matches on tour. The Stormers play the Rebels in their last overseas match.
Wretched fortune doesn't go on forever and so watch this space as the mighty Stormers fight back.
As for the Sharks that dumbass Plumtree needs to get his pack right. That miserable loose trio he started with was plain dumb. Lightweights like mtemba and daniel are simply a no no. Add in Coetzee at a mere 106 and you have no clout at loose forward. Need one solid guy like Deysle at a minimum. Too many small guys and you are doomed. Sharks desparately need Beast, Bissie and Alberts back to give the pack even more clout. LIke the Stomers they too should have won and with a 5 pointer. That with 17 squad members out.
Man both the Stormers and Sharks are superior to anything nz have. Now we have the Bulle and Cheetahs going well. Shows how strong Sa rugby is really. I still say Prof Noakes should a full investigation into all these injures. Can ones luck be that bad?
