Stormers won’t end trophy drought
26 Mar 2012
MARK KEOHANE, in his weekly Business Day column, says the Stormers don’t have what it takes to win this year’s Super Rugby tournament.
The Stormers may be the only unbeaten team in Super Rugby but they are looking no better than they did in 2010 and last year, where they relied on defence to get to the play-offs but never had the attacking game to win the tournament.
Defensively the Stormers were again colossal in defying the Lions, but the lack of attacking edge is looking all too familiar for a side whose players draw too much inspiration from making a tackle and not enough from making a break.
Springbok wing Bryan Habana is again turning half chances into points and the set piece is as strong as the team’s defensive desire, but there needs to be greater emphasis on attack if the Stormers are to challenge seriously for their first championship win.
The Bulls are the most complete and balanced of the South African contenders and their ruthlessness is unmatched in this year’s tournament. Twice in five weeks they’ve created the opportunity to demolish the opposition and they’ve been uncompromising in delivering the most lethal of finishes.
The Reds were never going to win in Pretoria. Injury has hurt the Queenslanders’ title defence, flyhalf and playmaker Quade Cooper is hugely missed and the players are finding the wearing of the crown decidedly tougher than the 2011 chase to attain it.
They would never have envisaged conceding 61 points and taking a 53-point beating, and for all the extenuating circumstances the scars of this defeat won’t heal easily. I’d be surprised to see them win the tournament this year. They don’t have the depth to counter the injury situation and so far they haven’t enjoyed the good fortune of last year.
I also can’t see the Stormers winning the title, which doesn’t mean they can’t suffocate the Bulls at Newlands this weekend and score a laboured once-off victory. Home-ground comforts remain an advantage in this tournament, but so do bonus points for scoring four-try wins.
The Stormers will always be tough to beat because their mindset is that of a team that plays not to lose, instead of playing to win. But the manner of victory should no longer be in duping their supporters into believing that the style of play is capable of delivering silverware. It isn’t.
The Bulls are playing with expression and belief, and incumbent Bok flyhalf Morné Steyn has profited from the bulldozing dominance of his team-mates in contact and at the set piece.
Steyn is showing that he can control a game with more than his boot, but the criticism that he has limitations when there is no forward momentum remains as valid as it was a year ago.
He is playing with greater enjoyment than he did a year ago and if his form holds until June, he will start for the Boks against England, with Pat Lambie, Johan Goosen and Elton Jantjies providing options. It has been a long time since the country’s stocks at flyhalf have been this high.
Goosen continues to scamper up the ladder in his first season in Super Rugby, although his decision to end the game against the Crusaders with a kick to touch was a contradiction of his talent. He offers too much as a player to adopt such a defeatist and conservative mindset and hopefully his team-mates gave him a blast at the final whistle.
The Cheetahs, the people’s favourites in New Zealand as much as they are in SA, are still too content with coming second. The same is true of the Lions, who lost again at home.
How long can a team be young? How long can players be commended for their character in a losing cause? How many more Super Rugby excuses for SA’s domestic champions?
Every team suffers injury. Every team battles hardship in this tournament, but there comes a time when a team must be judged on how many games — and not friends — they win.
And that time has surely come for the Lions.
They have the game and the players to defeat the Crusaders in Johannesburg this weekend, just as the Stormers have the mentality to beat the Bulls.
Both results are possible but I am not as convinced of the possibility that the Stormers or the Lions can be potential championship winners.
To convince me that it can be any other way, the Stormers have to change the way they win games and the Lions have to start winning some games. Ditto the Cheetahs and Sharks.
As for the Bulls … don’t change a thing.
355 Comments
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26 Mar 2012, 15:04 pm
@wpjoulekkading(wpjoulekkading)-192: Come off it, bud. Anyone who watches any sport knows that “3 play-off appearances” refers to three years or three seasons or three competitions and not simply progressions in a play-off stage. Same reason centuries in cricket don’t also count as half centuries. Not sarcastic, just factually correct. Sorry if that doesn’t sit well with you.
26 Mar 2012, 15:06 pm
@Sasuke(Sasuke)-200:
Let me put it this way. I the Stormers pack is superior on the day, they will indeed win it.
26 Mar 2012, 15:06 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-202:
I=if.
26 Mar 2012, 15:07 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-196: Luckily I don’t give a rat’s arse what your perspective is.
Stormers by 10.
26 Mar 2012, 15:07 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-199: Southern Suburbs got you shook?
26 Mar 2012, 15:08 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-199: So you know Pretoria South, but not Cape Town proper?
26 Mar 2012, 15:09 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-201:
Give him a break.
If a few fictitious play-off spots make it easier for him to overlook the outer space-like vacuum inside the Newlands trophy cabinet, who are you to take that away from him?
26 Mar 2012, 15:09 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-201: I explained what I meant and why I said it.. You know what I meant. So what now?
26 Mar 2012, 15:10 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-202: Agreed. Will be an intense game. I hope the injuries are not too bad.
26 Mar 2012, 15:10 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-206:
Hehe. I used to venture there on rare excursions, only to quickly retreat into more comforting surroundings.
26 Mar 2012, 15:10 pm
@wpjoulekkading(wpjoulekkading)-208: Nothing now. Just get it right next time.
26 Mar 2012, 15:11 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-207: I’ve got no hang-ups about the empty space, other than trying to fill it. The Bulls closet is also pretty empty at the moment no? For how many years will you keep living of the glory days of 2007-2010?
26 Mar 2012, 15:13 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-210: The irony is that you say you can’t navigate Cape Town, yet the “safe” places you mention have few distinguishing features vibracrete walls and golf ball post boxes don’t count), and the City Bowl, Southern Suburbs, Atlantic Seaboard and Southern Peninsula are simple to navigate thanks to the shape of the bays, peninsula and mountains.
26 Mar 2012, 15:13 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-210:
Whatsitwithyou.
My surroundings are very comforting.
26 Mar 2012, 15:13 pm
@wpjoulekkading(wpjoulekkading)-212:
Oh, probably until another SA team manages to win the trophy 3 times. Which means for the rest of my life, most likely.
26 Mar 2012, 15:15 pm
The Stormers upward curve is as mythical as the romcoms Mnet so often regurgitates.
26 Mar 2012, 15:16 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-215: So you will come progessively more bitter as the years go by. Let me know when you get to 32 Currie Cups.
26 Mar 2012, 15:17 pm
@Sasuke(Sasuke)-205: Tac “ain’t a crook son/ he’s just a shook one” – Mobb Deep
26 Mar 2012, 15:17 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-213:
I think I overstated the problem somewhat, for the sake of entertainment.
I don’t mean I can’t get from one area to the next and will be trapped in Camps Bay, Clifton, insert area here forever if I lose my way.
I just mean that when you drive through Cape Town, and use say the Mountain as a point of reference, this becomes confusing as the Mountain changes shape dramatically depending on where you are.
Similarly, depending on which bay or outcropping of land you happen to be next to, the sea could either be on your South, East, West and probably even on your North, so that also becomes difficult to manage if you don’t happen to know that Hout Bay is this side of Bantry Bay, or Clifton or whatever.
Hey, I’m not a Cape Town local, so sue me.
26 Mar 2012, 15:18 pm
Steyn
Hougard
Spies
This is where game will be lost and won
26 Mar 2012, 15:18 pm
The girl: always impossibly fecking beautiful and works in an art gallery
how many art galleries are there around anyway
The guy : ballbustingly handsome and just getting over breakup/divorce
The ditsy friend: always haggling impossibly beautiful art gallery owner about
her s@x life, her diet, her men, her txt msgs
And they all lived happily ever after.
26 Mar 2012, 15:19 pm
@pompies2(pompies2)-198: O is that how it works…new around here….
26 Mar 2012, 15:20 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-216: is that why you jumped ship? hehe
26 Mar 2012, 15:21 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-218: lol exact song i was thinking about!
26 Mar 2012, 15:21 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-219: Lol don;t stress, it’s taken me a while to get my mind-map drawn too
26 Mar 2012, 15:22 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-221: You work in an art gallery?
26 Mar 2012, 15:22 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-218: @Sasuke(Sasuke)-224:
“Mobb Deep wonder why a nigga blowed ‘em out/ Next time grown folks talk nigga, close your mouth” – 2Pac
26 Mar 2012, 15:27 pm
@Atreides(Atreides)-226:
No, only happens in the movies
Read my script outline
26 Mar 2012, 15:28 pm
What’s up with this site showing no new posts for like 20 minutes, and then suddenly when you refresh there are like 30 new posts?
It’s getting really irritating. They definitely went with some “Insert former Soviet Republic” hosted Server for the sake of economy recently, and it’s showing in the performance of the blog.
Sort your sh*t out boys.
26 Mar 2012, 15:28 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-223:
No.
Just sommer.
No more lus for stressed out stormers
26 Mar 2012, 15:30 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-229:
Uzbhekistan
26 Mar 2012, 15:31 pm
@wpjoulekkading(wpjoulekkading)-217:
Now that is a curve you can draw, 30 cups in 120 years and nothing in the last 15, you have really been on a downhill spiral……
26 Mar 2012, 15:31 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-228: Eet was my leetle joke….
26 Mar 2012, 15:33 pm
@Atreides(Atreides)-233:
Soreeee I am a leetle sloooowwww todaaaaay.
26 Mar 2012, 15:35 pm
Actually a lot slow
So frustrating
You meet a nice guy and you cant wait for the day to end so you can bbm all night
He’s not in CT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh the injustice.
26 Mar 2012, 15:39 pm
Duvenage copping a lot of abuse at the moment and I guess its fair, because his decision making and execution are both a bit shaky at the moment. Funnily enough I think he’s a better scrum half behind a beaten pack then he is behind a dominant pack, which is completely ridiculous! All the Stormers need from their scrum half right now is a guy who can get the ball out quick. Nothing more. Give one of the young scrummies a go and tell him that’s all he has to do. Keep it simple and give the backline fast quality ball. The forwards are providing it, but something is going wrong once Duvenage gets his hands on the ball. I’ve said it before but AC and Robbie Fleck aren’t doing their team any favors either.
26 Mar 2012, 15:40 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-231:
Speaking of which, you hear about the poor Kazakstan female team in Dubai recently?
They won a medal at the tournament, and when the team stood on the podium, the event organizers played the Kazakstan anthem for them.
Only problem is, the organisers had probably hardly heard of Kazakstan before, so they had gone and downloaded the Kazakstan national anthem from the internet, only for it to turn out to be the fake Borat version of it.
So the poor team captain stands on the podium, listening to a song about how proud they are of their pottasium production and how they have the cleanest prostitutes in the world.
She at least started smiling, but Kazakstan is apparently demanding an apology.
Classic.
26 Mar 2012, 15:41 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-237:
female shooting team.
26 Mar 2012, 15:49 pm
duvenage is dodgy imo, dunno why he so rated, grant is good.
26 Mar 2012, 15:50 pm
Think I will wear my Antwoord t-shirt on saturday…
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a poesklap”
26 Mar 2012, 15:50 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-237: lol you’re kidding
26 Mar 2012, 15:51 pm
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-237:
26 Mar 2012, 15:52 pm
Bulls were impressive on Saturday but they won’t win Saturday. I’d rather back a losing team playing attractive rugby than a team winning playing an ugly game. AC is not a good coach period. Not in my book. That said the Bulls are not convincing yet. Saturday was good for them but what happens if they lose to the Stormers on Saturday? Stormers by 10.
26 Mar 2012, 15:52 pm
@Sasuke(Sasuke)-224: classic track!
“when a slug penetrates you feel a burning sensation/ getting closer to God in a tight situation/ now. take these words home & think it through/ or the next rhyme mhight be about you”
“cause ain’t no such things as halfway crooks/
scared to death scared to look, they shook”
26 Mar 2012, 15:54 pm
Lawd
Lyrics
Again
26 Mar 2012, 15:56 pm
I suppose a slug isn’t the only thing that can give you a burning sensation on penetration
26 Mar 2012, 15:57 pm
@Taahirah(Taahirah)-227: hehehehe Pac was one paranoid mofo, dissing everyone cause he didn’t know who shot him…
anyway suge knight was fuelling all that bravado, as soon as s(hit hit the fan, the whole DeathRow records disintergrated into nothing.
26 Mar 2012, 15:57 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-244: Fo sho
26 Mar 2012, 15:58 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-246: lol Dawn!
26 Mar 2012, 15:58 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-246: Nawty nawty
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