Feeney wants the Stormers to go wide, and the tries will come...
STORMERS ASSISTANT coach Paul Feeney says the opportunities the Stormers threw away against the Reds will become less frequent the more they play.
Against the Reds, the Stormers created many opportunities but they failed to convert on a number of those, especially in the second half.
In the first half they scored a stunning try through Dewaldt Duvenage – which came after the backs held and timed their passes to perfection on the counter-attack before sending the ball to the scrumhalf. Raymond Rhule’s try after Craig Barry’s top-quality grubber in the opposition 22 was also quite special.
“Some days are better than others for whatever reason – the opposition has put too much pressure on you‚ or you were running too fast and cut down your time to think and to make a decision and you make a mistake‚” Feeney said.
“So in training we constantly work on repetition so that it can all come naturally. If you haven’t played 30‚ 40 Super games you have a long way to go. I consider that the threshold to finding your feet and some of our younger backs are new to this level of rugby and tasked with being the decision-makers. I understand when they don’t see the occasional chance.”
Feeney added that the Stormers needed to get back to playing with more width on attack. The Stormers have scored some good tries in the 2018 competition, with some of those impressive five-pointers coming against the Blues and the Reds at Newlands in the last two weeks.
But Feeney wants to see more glimpses of expansive play the Stormers showed last year, and although he’d like to see a bit more flair, he added that seeing their forwards have their way with ball in hand also makes for good viewing.
“We have to get back to playing with more width. We haven’t played as expansively as we did last year. We’ve been more forward dominant and gone down the middle a lot,” the coach in charge of the Stormers’ unstructured attack and defence said. “We scored four tries against the Crusaders and they came from three props and a lock‚ so it’s not quite the flair of last year‚ is it? But the highlight is how well some of our forwards are carrying‚ which is a plus for us.
“Against the Blues the backs scored four tries and against the Reds the backs combined for some good tries too. Every team will leave a few opportunities out there because it’s not easy and sometimes you have to take your hat off to the defence‚ because that’s what they are training to do.”