Stormers take road west with confidence

[caption id="attachment_77432" align="alignright" width="200"] SCHALK BURGER -[/caption]

THE Stormers headed to Perth yesterday in an upbeat mood after securing their first win on tour with a 32-18 victory over the Waratahs in Sydney.

The Stormers out-muscled and out-thought the defending Super Rugby champions and now have the opportunity to take home 10 or 11 points from their road trip.

After earning just one point in the three games prior to securing a maximum five points against the Waratahs, the Stormers are in a good position heading west to face the lowly Force at the weekend.

The Perth franchise have battled so far with just one win in eight outings and are low on confidence.

The Stormers will start as favourites, but they have some issues to deal with this week.

Flank Michael Rhodes is on his way home with a severe hamstring injury, and fellow back rower Schalk Burger will take part in only one training session.

Burger is off to Shanghai to attend the Laureus World Sports Awards. He is nominated in the category “comeback of the year”.

Burger will leave tomorrow and only be back for the captain’s run on Friday.

With Duane Vermeulen already back home as part of a rest programme, training will not be ideal with only Siya Kolisi and Nizaam Carr from the back row available.

But that is a small matter compared to the confidence and momentum last Saturday’s win gave the team.

“It was a massive performance,” coach Allister Coetzee said.

“It was a 23-man performance. The bench played their part and had a big impact.

“The Waratahs were very physical and as it was the third week on tour; we needed to use all our resources.”

Coetzee and his team made the right moves in Sydney, returning to using their shuddering defence, which has been such a big part of the team’s DNA over the past six years, as an attacking weapon.

The Waratahs are always a team who like to keep the ball in hand, but this season they have been prone to a high number of errors. Coetzee was aware of that and encouraged the Waratahs to run at his team, backing his charges’ defence and ability to attack from turnover. “They decided to run at us, rather than kick, and because we knew what was coming we were able to exploit that by turning them over at the breakdown and force them into a lot of mistakes,” Coetzee said.

“We put in a huge defensive performance and utilised turnover possession to score four tries.

“We knew there was space in behind and that’s why we used kicks to put them under pressure because they were using the rush defence. The players made good decisions and executed them well.

“In the first half our defence was a little off and we got it wrong a few times. But our tactics were spot on.

“We had line speed and our breakdown work was good in slowing their ball.

“We will take a lot of confidence from this to Perth. But we won’t underestimate the Force and we will work to keep improving.”

-Craig Ray