Constant change of personnel as a consequence of regular injuries has taken its toll on the Stormers, according to coach Allister Coetzee.
The Stormers have now replaced the Cheetahs at the bottom of the Super Rugby log following their 22-11 loss to the Waratahs at Newlands on Saturday, marking a sixth defeat in seven matches this season.
“We’ve had to change personnel week in and week out and many of the players coming in lack experience,” Coetzee said after the game in Cape Town.
SuperSport
“Some of them are playing Super Rugby for the first time and have not yet played Currie Cup, we lack experience.”
From the pre-season to the present, long-term injuries have struck hard in the Stormers camp and at various stages, no less than 11 players, including seven Springboks, were sidelined.
“What can you say, we are in a bit of a hole at the moment and it is just for this team to get out of that hole,” said Coetzee.
“I guess we met the Waratahs at a bad time [because we are depleted] but there is a bye next week and it’s a good time to re-look at our plans.”
Coetzee explained that the lack of experience has, on occasion, resulted in poor decision-making during games. The outcome was that some players started losing confidence.
“When we get turnover ball, well, in our game plan-that’s the ball we run, have a go, have a crack (at the opposition defence),” said Coetzee.
“There are decisions players make during matches which has been really strange to me. It’s also strange, when we’re in attacking positions we start kicking those balls away. It is a concern and that is why I question the confidence of certain players.”
Waratahs coach Michael Cheika echoed Coetzee’s sentiments about the timing of the match.
“We got them in a good week. They had just had four weeks on tour, had a few injuries, no Jean de Villiers, no Schalk Burger, no Gio Aplon, so it hurt them,” Cheika said.
“We wanted put them under a bit of pressure. They were feeling the pressure a bit. You could just feel it in Cape Town that there was expectation on them.”
Cheika said he was pleased that his charges took advantage of the situation and managed to record an away win.
“In a season where it seems the ledger of home and away wins is going to be quite important, any away win you get is going to be quite valuable,” said Cheika.
“To be fair to the Stormers, we were a week into our three (tour) weeks so we were all feeling sharp.
“So I think we have to be realistic around that too, but we took advantage of the situation, and were able to come away with something.”
Stormers stand-in skipper Duane Vermeulen said despite the defeat he remained optimistic for the rest of the season.
“We had a good game plan and executed it well until halftime, but silly little errors during the second half proved our undoing,” said Vermeulen.
“When you’re on the back foot it’s hard to keep your hands down at the ruck. Just the second half, we couldn’t execute. There were slight errors, little small mistakes that crept in and that was our problem.”
Mr Coach, moaning about injuries is a bit like moaning about nobody caring.
When the Lions had >18 squad members injured in 2012 nobody gave a damn. They had a shyte year and got relegated.
Stormers / WP are a “protected species” in SA Rugby, so your team are safe in their Super Rugby position, you however must be walking on thin ice.
FIFO has a few meanings, in your case it may well be “Fix It or Fukc Off”.
Good luck for the rest of theyear.
Coaching is an interesting aspects:
You have the AC approach who attempts to be everyones buddy’ol pal, “dis ok ou maat, probeer ned harder volgende keer”
Then you have Cheika’s approach that is aggressive, he absofuckinglutely!!! hates losing.
11-22
I can imagine the Stormers halftime speach.
AC and Mathew spreading some frozen yogurt about, patting the players on the shoulders, “moenie warri nie, ons is op nuweland, daai aussies gaan nou moeg raak, ons moet net by ons strukture bly, Grantie, goeie game chom, die bal hop net nie reg vir jou nie, maar dis okay, die ouens gaan nou moeg raak en ons in die game bring, ‘n een punt wen is n wen, twee punt wen beteken julle speel te hard” So the whole changing room starts laughing, the players patting eachother on the shoulders, JDJ, “Etter dit is lekker om weer saam julle ouens te speel, ons het darem ‘n lekker coach”. Dan sit AC sy hand in die middle van die groep spelers om sy hero Emilio te copy soos in daai movie van die Mighty ducks. “Als is okay ouens, probeer net julle beste”.
He should just piss off and take the rest of his coaching clowns and dead wood players like 20 meter Peter with him
All the excuses under the sun won’t change the results… All teams have injuries, some more than others. You as a coach should know that. Don’t use injury now as your excuse. It don’t gel with me or with others… It is just a feeble excuse… Finish and Klaar
Everyone keeps bashing Allister and says we should get Mallett ,we should get Brendan Venter bla bla bla bla bla.
Did you know we had Mallett as Director of rugby in 2006 ,2007 around that time.
Did you know we had Rassie after that for 2,3 years.
Did you know they both resigned blaming the board’s political interference.
So any half decent coach in SA would not want to come near the Stormers based on that , come work with political pawns and money grabbers.
Not attacking anyone with this post just wish people would look past the coaching staff and at the board who let this vrot bit by bit. 17 year season ticket holder. I saw this coming after end of 2012. And yes most of the neutrals were correct when they said our 2012 Currie Cup win was a fluke that will just allow our coaching staff to continue taking us absolutely nowhere.
gatvol
gonna start shouting for the bladdy Griffons now
@ WP-boytjie:
Come support the Bulls.
Sure our board makes some questionable decisions at times, but when they realize it does not work they admit it.
dankie tog!! ñ bye-weekend!! nou kan mens mos weer ñ slag agteroor sit en kyk hoe die ander spanne verloor!!
more almal!
MacroBull wrote:
Haha lekker glag maar die scary ding is DIS SEKER DONNERS WAAR
Like WP-Boytjie said, it is rotten at the top – get rid of that fat donut face CEO
Amazing difference in coaches attitude between this post and previous post (Ackerman) – goes a long way to summing AC up. Theres always an excuse, and its never him.
“There are decisions players make during matches which has been really strange to me. It’s also strange, when we’re in attacking positions we start kicking those balls away. It is a concern and that is why I question the confidence of certain players.” – perhaps the substitution decisions and on field positional changing may have also been a reason, Mr Coetzee??????
WP-boytjie wrote:
I know the Board sucks… Unfortunately, AC is still the coach and puts his plan in place – or is there something I don’t know… I for one believe a new broom sweeps clean… the politics is everywhere, our government ensures it…
@11:48 @ Just For Kicks:
I’m so tired of every excuse under the sun… It is never the poor game plan…
no longer interested in ac’s excuses. cant wait to see him leave!
I have a proposal.
AC and Domingo must just swop teams.
The results will be the same, but unfortunately, so will the excuses.
Must be honest, Domingo does give AC a run for his money with this gem.
Domingo defends tactics with AB, Steyn
07 April 2014, 11:37
South Africa’s national cricket coach Russell Domingo on Monday defended his team’s tactical approach in the ICC World T20 in Bangladesh, saying AB de Villiers is “an impact player” who needs the game to be set up for him.
South Africa bowed out of the competition at the semifinal stage, beaten by six wickets with five balls remaining by India, but faced criticism in some quarters for their tactics, especially their decision to bat De Villiers at No 5 and only give Dale Steyn one over in the first 14 overs.
“AB is an impact player and the stats show – not just for South Africa but also in the IPL – that he’s more dangerous when the game has been set up for him. He doesn’t have the same game as Virat Kohli. He’s batted [at] three with limited success.
“But it’s not about the number he bats, it’s about the situation when he comes in. If he walks out in the first over, I don’t think that’s a great time for him to bat. But if there’s been a good start, then that’s a great time for him to bat.
“But if we have a 13-over partnership, then there’s criticism that AB’s coming in too low. People seem to want our players to get out, so AB can come in,” Domingo said.
De Villiers’ one notable innings at the ICC World T20 came in their last group match against England when he came in at No 3 in the 11th over, after an opening partnership of 90 between Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock, and blazed 69 not out from 28 balls.
In his other innings, he came in at four in the 11th over against Sri Lanka and scored 24 off 16; at four in the sixth over against New Zealand and made five off six balls; at four in the fifth over against the Netherlands and scored a run-a-ball 21; and in the semifinal, he came in at five in the 14th over and made just 10 off eight deliveries.
The coach said the decision to hold Steyn back in the semifinal was due to batsmen having an extremely attacking mindset later in the innings.
“Dale can only bowl four overs and we need him the middle and at the end of the innings. We also need to set up the six-over powerplay up front as best as we can, but we can’t bowl Dale one up front, just one in the middle and two at the death.
“So we decided we’d rather have guys like JP Duminy bowling at the start in the less-pressured overs and he only went for seven in the first over against New Zealand, while Dale went for 17 in the first over against Sri Lanka. But the fifth and sixth overs are the most attacking,” Domingo said.
Domingo said overall he was “not displeased” by the way his team had performed.
“You’re always judged on your last game, but I felt we played some really good cricket in the tournament. In those conditions, probably the two best sides [Sri Lanka and India] made the final, but we were quietly confident going in.
“We’ve generally played good T20 cricket in the last year. We have a good playing strategy, we got to No 2 in the world, so there’s a definite upward trend. We lost the Australian series because we got beaten in a seven-over game and then played badly in the other match, but we had success in Pakistan and we beat Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka.”
@ nortierd:
I won’t even go the Domingo way… I agree with Wessels that we need a different coach for the shorter version as we do the same every game…
nortierd wrote:
Perhaps Domingo is hoping that this is the case, as its easier to explain that one away! Sadly the entire competition bar one match, has been a near disaster for us – Netherlands game a case in point
@Gummi and JFK
We were fortunate that we had the better group.
I seriously doubt we would have progressed if we were in the other group.
Watch AB in the IPL bat early and score a ton of runs from 3.
@12:10
@ nortierd:
As I read it, Domingo is basically saying that Kohli is a better all round batsman than de Villiers as he can come in at number 3, irrespective of the match situation, and set up a win for his team while de Villiers can only win a match for his team when the situation has been set up for him.
Not exactly a vote of confidence in his team’s best batsman.
@Robzim
Yep, yet AB is universally hailed as the best batsman in the world.
I see he didn’t even make the world 20/20 team. The only Protea players who made it was Duminy and Dale
I think a lot can be said about the stormers gameplan, the management of players etc…
but if only, for the last five years, they changed ONE thing and made a choice that NO forward takes the ball at flyhalf 15m back, then already the Stormers would still be a good team, it just breaks any, if not all the momentum.
I think the players should have been blamed for this years ago, and not have been touted to play for the boks, when blue bull meyer did not select them.
I think for the first time in 2 years I will actually enjoy going out to a bar here in province country to watch a springbok game and not have to hear how kak meyer, matfield, the bulls, the gameplan, how a mostly sharks team is considered meyers kak bulls team, how the whole stormers front row should be boks as well as half the backline.
ahhhhh
@ robzim:
Exactly! Just how I understood him. Kohli is a better batsman so can bat early at 3. If you want to make a statement make sure you think before you spew what you do. It will come out later that there was a misunderstanding… I think it is about time we learn to take accountability and get rid of all the excuses. I admire honesty above excuses all the time… We were beaten by India and went home… Stormers have lost all but one game, so why not take accountability and state we need to change things as they are not working, instead of excusing why it is not working… I rest my case…
@ nortierd:
They chose the team solely on the performance during this world cup. AB had one good knock in and on that didn’t deserve a spot in the team… At least we have three SAFFAS in the team – even if one is Orange…
@ Gumboots:
I think Tahir deserves a mention.
@ MacroBull:
Abolutely! So did Cooper from Holland; Maxwell from Oz and a few more too…The West Indies spinner chosen was excellent throughout as well…
@ Gumboots:
Maxwell was selected though? as well as the west indian… well i guess it will never be easy to select the best 11 out of 110 players
Gumboots wrote:
Yep, but his fielding and catching already makes him more valuable than others.
By the same token, Dhoni should not have been there, AB did more with the bat and could also keep and captain.
Sammy and Maxwell?
But we know the team is not a real side, just a game.
@Macrobull
Yep, but Ashwin is a far superior spinner. If one considers Narine and Mishra didn’t make the side, and the Dutch also had a spinner that took a lot of wickets
@ MacroBull:
Sorry! I see he was selected. I mentioned that the Windies spinner was selected. Like Norty mentioned, many good spinners who could be aggrieved too… There is only space for 11…make it 12 with the twelfth man… Rhodes was always no 12 if I remember correctly…
@ nortierd:
Exactly…it is just a team… We can all select our teams as well…
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