Assistant coach John Dobson says the Stormers hope to be able to employ a high-tempo game against the Sharks this Saturday.
The Stormers head to Kings Park looking to gain ground on the Sharks, who have been the pacesetters in the South African conference, winning both of their opening fixtures against the Sunwolves and Blues with bonus points.
The visitors have taken note of how the Blues upped the pace of the game in the second half, leading to something of a comeback, before the result was eventually killed off by an intercept try from Sharks replacement Curwin Bosch.
Dobson said that if the forecast rain stays away in Durban, it is something that is factoring into their planning.
‘With the Blues, you always know that quality would always come back. It is certainly a game we want to play with a bit of tempo. You saw the effects the Blues got for it. We have tried to do it before, haven’t always got it right, but it will certainly be part of our planning.
‘It looks like there is some rain around. We want to play quickly, we think we are really well-conditioned. If it rains, it could be quite a Springbok-laden pack of forwards out there. We are not scared either way.’
Having had a chance to review the Stormers’ win over the Bulls last Saturday, Dobson said the Stormers coaching staff had noted that the team played much better than they had originally thought.
‘There were more positives from Saturday when we watched it again than what we thought. One of the things towards the end was that we were pushing the tempo quite nicely, our lineouts dropped from 30 seconds to somewhere in the lower 20s.
‘At the time we felt we had shown a lot of character. But when we looked at the game afterwards, defensively and at the breakdowns, the Lions have Malcolm Marx, Kwagga Smith, Marnus Schoeman, Carlu Sadie, and those areas we were pretty sharp in. Our physicality, you saw what Eben [Etzebeth] and Jaco [Coetzee] brought when they came on. You saw what Herschel [Jantjies] brought when he came on in terms of rhythm to the game. Maybe there is a bit more in it than just us showing character.’
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