The good, the bad and the Stormers

The first few weeks of a Super Rugby season are always a bit of a gamble. It’s easy to judge teams on paper or on pre-season results, but it’s worth waiting until you’ve seen every team and player in action.

The Stormers have experience a bit of a rollercoaster ride in the past six or seven months in respect to their coach. In the latter stages of 2015 it was announced that long-serving stalwart Allister Coetzee would be plying his trade in Japan on a two-year contract.

Following that development was the announcement that Western Province Rugby Union director of rugby Gert Smal would be looking for a coach who would “take the Stormers back to their roots” and that “an Australasian coach would be the prerequisite for the job”.

For a moment, things looked promising for a Super Rugby team which has always been good, but never good enough.

Cue the Eddie Jones dilemma.

Jones was announced as the Stormers head coach during the latter stages of 2015, and Cape Town rejoiced. The man who felled the Springboks with Japan would bring salvation to a team that had found themselves in a hole freshly dug by themselves. The optimism spread through Western Province faster than the wildfires that plague the region.

And then the messiah was cruelly taken away by the low-swinging chariot. England snapped Jones up and left the Stormers completely stormless. Then the same process was initiated. Names like John Mitchell, John Plumtree and Robbie Deans surfaced, but the Stormers remained coachless.

Robbie Fleck, the same man who provided oversight over the seemingly sightless Stormers backline, was what we got. An applicable Afrikaans description would be something along the lines of: “Ons het gegaan vir goud, maar toe kry ons net hout.”

It doesn’t sound as philosophical when you directly translate it, but the most applicable English term is: “No use crying over spilt milk.”

The Stormers have already played three games for two wins and one loss – hardly anything to be concerned about – but concern does eventually creep up like David Pocock creeps up a ruck.

The opening 33-9 win against the Bulls at Newlands was a good start, though it did leave more questions than answers. Both teams were understandably rusty and the closely contested first half showed both teams were just trying to find their feet. This is a logical concept for any rugby fan, and it no doubt satisfies you, but the second half was a lot more difficult for me to analyse.

The Bulls have now completed two games (they had a bye last weekend), resulting in a resounding loss against the Stormers and a resounding win over the Rebels. Their second half efforts in both games are more important to divulge than any of the Stormers’ games so far.

In both of the Bulls’ games, they faded heavily between the 50 and 70-minute marks. The Stormers scored most of their points during that period, as did the Rebels. This means that the Bulls are having heavy lapses in concentration late in the game; perhaps that is why the Stormers won as comfortably as they did.

The game against the Cheetahs was painful to watch, not just because the Cheetahs were absolutely ghastly, but because the Stormers were the very definition of stormless. The game was littered by handling errors and lapses in concentration. These seem to be recurring themes when any team plays against the Cheetahs. The Jags knocked the ball like professionals. The Stormers played like headless chickens and the poor Sunwolves tackled like, well… Cheetahs.

The third game against the Sharks is where things start getting a little iffy, and by iffy I mean that it all just seems so damn familiar. To those who don’t follow rugby as religiously as the most of us, they might consider the Sharks beating the Stormers at Newlands to somewhat of a victory.

We, the rugby initiated, see it simply as routine.

The Stormers absolutely love losing against the Sharks in Newlands. To be fair they also have the inexplicable tendency to beat the Sharks at Growthpoint King’s Park. A quick flick over the statistics between these two sides in Super Rugby and the Currie Cup over the past few years will make it common knowledge to you that, for some reason, these teams enjoy beating one another in one another’s backyards.

My question is an age-old one: Have the Stormers actually changed anything?

They have made visible attempts at playing a more running-orientated game while trying to keep their defence as stout as it has been since the early days of 2010. Here we can give Fleck a well-deserved round of applause. It is a very Australasian thing to do. No one ever asked for the Stormers to trade in their defence for attack. What we always wanted was for them to keep what they have and add what they don’t. I can safely say that I give Fleck’s charges full marks for trying.

But their execution needs work. Yes, they attacked fearlessly against the Sharks, and they looked fairly comfortable doing it. The Sharks defence had a lot of bite to it and because of that the Stormers found it very hard to break any lines, but there were plenty of things that they did differently compared to the previous few years.

I was particularly impressed by how many metres players like Siya Kolisi, Nizaam Carr and Juan de Jongh made in contact with much heftier units than themselves. The Stormers players in general ran exceptionally hard lines and, more importantly, did so from various angles. They did not just play off their nine as South African teams tend to do. Both forwards and backs ran off the fly-half and inside-centre on separate occasions and created a little variation.

There is a point of concern that the forwards are trying to spread the ball. In itself, this is a good thing. New Zealand and Australian forwards handle the ball in the line all the time and to great effect. The Stormers are trying to do that as well, but the way they are implementing it to me is wrong on a few technical levels.

My primary concern here is Schalk Burger. Burger has transformed as a player since his rucking brush with death two years ago, and can handle the ball very well now. He can pass, he can draw defenders and he can offload very well.

But I want to have a word with the coach who told him that he must play like a secondary fly-half. Burger is costing the team dearly with his omnipresence in the fly-half channel. I feel that where you want to use Burger is wider out, perhaps between 12 and 13, or between 13 and 14 where he can actually create space.

His problem, and the problem for another few forwards in the team, is that he gets the ball in the playmaker role (Vincent Koch and Oli Kebble have also made the same mistake numerously so far), and then tries to play the secondary line (the front line of runners being decoys). The main problem here is that Burger and company catch the ball and then pause in their tracks and then try to give the ball to the intended line of attack. Most of the time the pass is not a very good one either.

If the Stormers want to use such a tactic then it must not have any stoppage. Burger needs to run onto the ball and give the ball to the secondary line while in motion. If they keep coming to a standstill then it is only logical that the defence draws closer and thus kills the leeway that the Stormers would have had.

Siya Kolisi, for example, is doing it how they should be doing it. Kolisi threw two magnificent offloads that created space against the Sharks. Another forward that supplies good ball is Pieter-Steph du Toit.

As a side note, Eben Etzebeth seems to have reached a higher echelon of form. He has been the lock of the tournament so far for me. He has imposed himself physically on attack and defence. He has left quite a few players on their backsides, and that spells good fortune for both the Stormers and Springboks.

The Stormers square off against the Brumbies this weekend, and I do hope they will continue playing positively.

Based on what we’ve seen so far I don’t believe that the Stormers have reached the level that they need to be to win this competition. The game against the Sharks just showed that nothing has changed. But for the first time in years there is reason to believe that it will change.

The Stormers are trying to become a complete team and it will take time before they make any real progress. I believe that we will see a very different Stormers team by 2017. As for 2016 it will be more of the same.