Stormers look to make that final pass
AFTER giving up a handy lead, and then going on to lose, against the Blues last weekend one thing the Lions won’t be this week is complacent.
And the team that could be in for a bit of a backlash is the Sunwolves – probably the weakest side in the competition.
The men from Japan have lost all three matches so far in this year’s Super Rugby competition and will start at Ellis Park on Saturday evening knowing the last time they visited Joburg, last year, the Lions hammered them 94-7. The home team scored 14 tries in a stunning display of attacking rugby.
The Lions though, after being stunned by the Blues, are not even thinking along those lines.
“There’s no time for complacency,” insisted hooker Malcolm Marx this week. “Anybody can beat anybody in this competition. The Sunwolves play quick, fast, running rugby and we can’t afford to be complacent against them … you just don’t know what’s going to happen on the day, if it’s going to go well or not.”
It certainly didn’t go well for the Lions last week but it is something Marx said the players had learned from and would take forward in the rest of the competition.
“We probably got a bit too comfortable at stages. We didn’t execute as well as we should have but we’ve analysed where we went wrong and we simply have to keep going,” he said. Marx added that the implosion suffered against the Blues was now something of the past and the players had put it behind them soon after last Saturday’s match.
“We talked about it straight after the game and we agreed to get over it,” he said. “It was one game in the season and this is a long competition. The vibe has been good at training, which is important because you don’t want a sour vibe going into the next weekend. If we were going to lose it’s probably better it happened now rather than later. We’ve got time to get back on the band-wagon and graft hard again.”
Marx, who was named South African Rugby Player of the Year for 2017 just before the competition started, has had a fairly quiet time of it for the Lions so far this year. He has yet to hit top form, either as a ball-carrier, cleaner or stealer, and also missed a number of line-out throws in the first two rounds of action.
“I’m not very happy (with my form) at the moment,” he admitted this week. “Things picked up a bit in game three and four, but I’ve got a lot to work on. I’m working hard every day and hopefully it picks up from here, it’s a long season.”
Marx would have been one of the candidates coach Swys de Bruin would have considered to lead the team in the absence of Warren Whiteley and Jaco Kriel, but he wasn’t prepared to let anything out the bag ahead of today’s team announcement where a new leader will be named.
Prop Jacques van Rooyen, flank Kwagga Smith, scrumhalf Ross Cronjé and flyhalf Elton Jantjies are the other players who have led the team before and could be entrusted with the job. Whiteley is expected back in about a month’s time.
The Sunwolves, coming off a 50-point beating by the Sharks in Durban, will include former local stars Willie Britz, Lappies Labuschagne, Hencus van Wyk, Wimpie van der Walt and Grant Hattingh in their ranks this weekend. STORMERS utility back Dillyn Leyds (pictured) says they don’t want to play a “free and expansive” game against Australian and South African opposition, they want to do so against the best – the New Zealanders.
After losing to the Waratahs, the Crusaders and the Highlanders on their three-match tour to Australasia, the utility back said that their game against the Blues at Newlands this weekend will pose another good opportunity to see what they can do with ball in hand.
Against the Highlanders, the Stormers looked good on attack at times, but they struggled to finish and find and create the space to allow themselves to convert their opportunities into points in Dunedin.
“We’ve reviewed each of our games and we’ve seen that it’s maybe just that final pass or the ball not going to hand. For us it’s a big positive…being able to create opportunities. We’re putting teams under good pressure, so now it’s just that final pass or that last ball that should go to hand so that we can get the points,” the Springbok said.
“As the backline we stood up and we said ‘look, maybe in the first few games we weren’t as effective as we wanted to be’, we took ownership for that. But in saying that, at times we WARMING UP: Malcolm Marx, South African Rugby Player of 2017 admits that he’s not yet where he’d want to be, but he’s close. And that should be a concern for their opponents this weekend. looked really good.
“We’re very confident in what we have to do and sometimes we don’t get the width on attack that we want to, but we’re working on it. And hopefully we can perform a full 80 minutes on attack and things will go our way in that department.”
“For us it’s the perfect time to see what we’re capable of as well (against the Blues). We want to be able to not just play the free and expansive style against Australian and South African opposition, we want to do it against the best, and at the moment the New Zealanders are the best.”
Springbok tighthead Wilco Louw spoke for the forwards when he reflected on their Australasia trip, saying that the Blues’ efforts against the Lions at the weekend showed that although the Stormers can be confident in their scrummaging ability, they can’t underestimate the Kiwis in that department.
“At Super Rugby level I don’t think there’s ever an easy team to scrum against. You learn every weekend, and the Lions were under a bit of pressure from the Blues, but they applied some good pressure as well. So it’s going to be a tough battle this weekend,” Louw said of the shoving contest.
And while the Stormers scrum is certainly one of their sharpest tools, their line-out has caused them a lot of problems in recent times, especially against the Waratahs and the Crusaders on tour.
Injuries to hooker Bongi Mbonambi, Scarra Ntubeni and even Eben Etzebeth JD Schickerling and Pieter-Steph du Toit (now recovered) haven’t helped Robbie Fleck’s team either. And Louw said that they’re aiming to both set-pieces something to be confident about.
“Our scrum is one of our strengths but it’s something that we have to work at consistently. I think we have a good scrum culture.
“We’re paying more attention to our line-outs because we have to be good in both.”