Stormers staff to tour world in search of winning formula

STORMERS coach Robbie Fleck and his assistants are to broaden their professional skills with a long road trip to study other professional setups.

Fleck will be accompanied by assistants Paul Feeney (skills)‚ Russell Winter (forwards) and Steph du Toit (conditioning).

After losing the Super Rugby quarterfinal 17-11 against the Chiefs at Newlands on Saturday‚ Fleck and his management team will have a small break before beginning preparations for next year.

The entire this season will be reviewed and assessed‚ and Fleck and his three lieutenants will attempt to find the secret to closing the gap on New Zealand teams in the southern hemisphere’s toughest tournament.

Fleck’s team have come a long way from last year, when they were humiliated 60-21 by the Chiefs in the quarterfinals.

That humbling experience forced the Stormers to re-evaluate everything they were doing and led to some drastic changes. Conditioning and skills improvement were the core focuses – and on that score the Stormers have come a long way, in a short time.

They started a three-year plan, with the goal of winning the Super Rugby tournament by 2019.

So far they can argue they are on track‚ after winning their Super Rugby group conference and hosting a quarterfinal.

But the bare minimum next year would have to be a semifinal show.

“As coaches, we will go back to the drawing board in our analysis of the campaign‚” Fleck said.

“We will assess what worked for us and what has not and will again travel the world to tap into the best expertise we can to see what we can do to improve our team.

“We will come back and present a good plan for 2018 to the players.”

Fleck and Du Toit travelled extensively after last year’s setback and gleaned useful insights‚ most notably from time spent with England coach Eddie Jones.

That data was used to address skills and conditioning deficits‚ which are still works in progress.

Later this year, Fleck and the coaches will spend some time with departing Chiefs coach Dave Rennie at his new post as head coach of the Glasgow Warriors.

Fleck is a great admirer of Rennie and the Chiefs‚ and the New Zealander has become something of a long-distance mentor to him.

“The most exciting thing is that we have made a lot of progress this year‚” Fleck said.

“We are only losing three or four players to other clubs [Juan de Jongh‚ Cheslin Kolbe and Oli Kebble are heading overseas] and the bulk of the squad is staying behind.

“The players are excited – they have seen what they can do against the best sides in the Super Rugby tournament.

“If they work hard and we build as a team we’ll become incredibly competitive in this event,” he said.

“Of course we are disappointed that we lost to the Chiefs, but we have to look at the positives. There are more than the negatives.

“Last year, the Chiefs exposed some glaring shortcomings in our approach – and we managed to sort most of those out. We have more time now.”