It all comes down to composure – Swiel

WESTERN Province flyhalf Tim Swiel says the Cape Town side just have to transfer the standard of their training sessions into matchdays to make sure they start producing better performances.

Province suffered their second Currie Cup defeat in as many matches when they went down to the Golden Lions in Johannesburg at the weekend.

They lost the first one against the Bulls in the same way – in the last five minutes of the encounter.

Coach John Dobson’s squad has struggled to be consistent and produce 80-minute performances until now – either starting well and fading, or starting slow and having to play catch-up.

They face the Pumas at Newlands on Friday (kick-off 7pm).

Speaking during a press conference yesterday, Swiel said he believes this shortcoming all comes down to a lack of composure and their failure to carry their training form into their matchday performances.

“It’s a bit of composure, you know. I know you’re talking about the last two games, but if you look at the previous game against the Pumas, it was the complete opposite – we were better towards the end,” Swiel said.

“As a group we haven’t trained as well as we have during the last month or so – the standard of training is so good.

“Transferring that into the matchday is probably what we are searching for the most.

“We haven’t really clicked in that sense. In the Griquas game we started off well and got good momentum there, but we haven’t really done that again.

“The way we play and our shape … we’re so comfortable with it during training, but it’s transferring into to the game that we’ve been struggling with.

“I suppose anything that’s worth having doesn’t just happen, so it’s not going to happen in two weeks.

“But even if we had won the last two games, it’s not the prettiest kind of rugby.

“That’s why we’re not so down as we should be because we don’t chase results – we want a good style of rugby, and we haven’t really had that over the last few weeks, so we’re really looking for a better performance.”

Swiel, who played in England for Harlequins from 2014-2018 and Newcastle from 2018-2020, said that while he has grown up in the northern hemisphere style and what the boxes they want their No 10s to tick, he explained what his goal is in terms of refining his craft.

“I see rugby as an art – when I was younger all I wanted to do was run, step, and offload, but you’ve got to broaden your game. So I try and have little aspects of other parts of the game on a more consistent level, and coming back with a bit more experience behind me in that hybrid type of style is what I’m pushing for.

“We need to start well against the Pumas because if they start well they get their heads up, as we saw at Mbombela. We need to start well, control things from there, and show a little bit of composure at the end.”