STORMERS LOOK TO 2019 Good win over the Sharks gives Robbie Fleck confidence as they prepare for next year’s campaign

STORMERS coach Robbie Fleck is confident they’ve got the right players and management to return the team to the upper echelons of Super Rugby.

The Stormers’ 2018 Super Rugby campaign might have ended sooner than they would have liked, but Fleck says they have to start working towards next year – and that motivation they’ll draw from their playing – and coaching personnel.

“We’ve got to put plans in place for 2019 and we’re obviously not happy with where we are, but there was a huge amount of lessons learn’t and we believe we’ve got the squad and the management to take this franchise back to the top.

“And that’ll be our motivation for next year.”

At Newlands on Saturday, the Stormers produced a pleasing end to their 2018 season with a 27-16 win over the Sharks.

In the build-up to the game, Fleck said they would play for pride, and the victory should surely help in terms of that motivation as they prepare for the 2019 competition.

In Saturday’s game, the Stormers scored three tries to the Sharks’ one, with two of the Stormers’ five-pointers especially pleasing as one was scored from the counter attack after half-centurion Dillyn Leyds created some magic, and the other after a stunning spell of attacking play after Damian de Allende spotted and accelerated into the gap before offloading to Cobus Wiese to score.

The Sharks, on the other hand, were their own worst enemies. The fixture against the Stormers was a must-win to secure a play-off spot.

And although they still have a mathematical chance, it will no doubt be a tough one against the Jaguares in Durban next week.

Robert du Preez’s men made a number of mistakes and also slipped too many tackles, but after a relatively flat first half, they looked better in the second.

After the match, Fleck credited his team for their fighting spirit that allowed them to get the win against a Sharks team which played with more intent after the break.

“It was nice to finish off on a high note,” Fleck said.

“Our season is well-documented. We showed a lot of promise building up to a good lead at half-time and the Sharks played a little bit better in the second half. The boys showed good character and good fight. And towards the end of the game we grew stronger again. For the first time this season luck was on our side.”

The Stormers have often started well this season only to fade after half time. So it was of course important to make an 80-minute performance the goal, seeing that they were keen on salvaging some pride.

And it was an effort the Stormers mentor is pleased with.

“The first half showed what this team is capable of doing. We’ll look back at it and regret losing against the Waratahs and the Sunwolves, and that Lions game (we could have won).”I’m immensely proud of the boys. Our execution and our finishing has let us down. It was good against the Sharks, especially in that first half.

“We’ll start our review the week after next, that should take one or two weeks and we’ll see what happens.”

• Meanwhile, the Bulls snapped a three-match losing streak as they overturned a 19-point deficit to beat the Jaguares 43-34 in Pretoria on Saturday.

This result also sees the Jaguares’ seven-match winning streak come to an end, while preventing them from overtaking the Lions at the top of the South African conference.

In contrast to the final outcome, the Jaguares could not have dreamed of making a better start to this clash as they exposed some awful Bulls defence for Nicolas Sanchez and Pablo Matera to score within the opening five minutes. It was a double-strike that left the home side looking completely rattled, particularly when Jaguares scrumhalf Gonzalo Bertranou went over just before the quarter-hour mark to send the Argentine team into a commanding 19-0 lead.

Although the Bulls did hit back through a try to Johnny Kotze, their woes were compounded as their usually steady line-out repeatedly malfunctioned.

Despite spending so much of the first half on the backfoot, the Bulls would have been thrilled to cut the deficit to just five points when Embrose Papier went over for his side’s second try in the 36th minute.

That’s the way it looked likely to remain heading into half-time, and yet in the final play before the break, Jesse Kriel latched onto a loose pass and darted away for an intercept try that sent the Bulls into a completely unexpected two-point lead.

It didn’t take long for the Jaguares to get back into the lead when Bertranou finished off his second try soon after the restart, but the Bulls struck right back when Jamba Ulengo and Marco van Staden went over for two important tries that opened up a 10-point lead.

As the Bulls’ confidence continued to grow, Ulengo was put away for his second try in the 64th minute, which effectively killed off any further fight from the weary Jaguares.