Former Springbok prop Robbie Kempson is worried that the Stormers’ front row doesn’t instil enough fear into opponents ahead of the Super Rugby tournament.
Kempson is the current forwards coach at the Southern Kings and despite his team’s 38-13 loss to the Stormers over the weekend, he fears for his former team come scrum time.
“It is for me, as a fan of the Stormers, a worry. We knew before Saturday’s match that we could target the Stormers’ front row,” Kempson told Die Burger.
Despite the Stormers winning comfortably against the Kings, the one area in which they struggled was in the scrums. The Stormers complained that the referee’s engagement (crouch, touch, pause, engage) orders at the scrums were different that what teams are used to. And while Kempson acknowledged this fact he still believes the Capetonians should have handled the situation better.
“It didn’t help that there was about 10 seconds between ‘pause’ and ‘engage’, but the front rows adapted.”
“At times the Stormers got good engagements but your opponents can make up for that if you don’t follow through well with your engagement.”
Kempson, who played 36 games for the Stormers, believes Deon Carstens, Tiaan Liebenberg and Frans Malherbe should make up their front row in Super Rugby.
“Steven Kitshoff (loosehead prop) has a tendency to try and walk around the tighthead. He’s still young, but it makes his opponents’ task easier.
“Look, the Stormers don’t have a front row that really instils fear. They do have an unbelievable backline and the goal should probably be to get the ball wide as soon as possible.”
Kempson reckons the Western Province union has made a mistake over the last decade by not trying to find a top class prop.
“Duane Vermeulen (loose forward) was a good acquisition for the pack, but WP has never contracted a world class prop.”
“I don’t think they’ll be able to launch attacks from their scrums this year. However, it (their scrum) shouldn’t disintegrate if I take into account the way the referees are currently applying the laws.”
February 15th, 2012 at 23:27 SAST
IRB Law makers have lost it with the scrums. They want to make the game faster and have more ball in hand time, but what they have done with this absurd pauses is just more dead time in a game. I believe that the scrum shambles will take at least 5 minutes of play time out of the game. Statisticians will keep us updated but i predict 5 plus minutes will be lost.
The way they go now we can set up like uncontested scrums and them push at the call of the ref.
February 16th, 2012 at 07:17 SAST
@ Supa, I think you are being conservative, if you consider the reset’s, collapses, and resulting penalties, you can easily making it 15 minutes! Remember that daft penalty vs the Sharks for dangerous play even before the engage Bwaaahaaa!
February 16th, 2012 at 07:50 SAST
@ Cheetah4eva:
Really a bloody farce. I get so upset with the time waste.
Look when a team gets a penalty on the tryline almost 95% of the time the captain calls for another scrum, but the whole time that is wasted is mounting. Rugby is already a very stop start affair with the minute allowed for a kick , so why add more pauses.