Cape Town – Stormers coach John Dobson said the team felt “they threw it away” after a 14-3 halftime lead turned into a 24-14 Champions Cup defeat to Clermont in France on Saturday.
The Capetonians were well on their way to victory after a measured and efficient first-half performance, where flank Deon Fourie and lock Salmaan Moerat were outstanding in halting the French team’s momentum at the breakdowns and in defence.
Fourie made a number of steals on the ground and Moerat dished out several big tackles, and when the No 6 scored from a lineout maul after half-an-hour, the Stormers were 11-3 ahead.
But somehow the visitors started falling off tackles after halftime, and with a boisterous 19 000-strong home crowd at the Stade Marcel Michelin roaring their team forward, Clermont scored via fullback Alex Newsome and wing Alivereti Raka, while flyhalf Jules Plisson slotted three penalties, a conversion and a drop-goal.
“The first half was very good, where we stuck to our plan. The second half, for the third week in a row – but for completely different reasons – was really disappointing,” Dobson said.
“I just think we made a lot of errors ... We knocked-on three balls in our 22 in trying to exit, we turned a ball over that cost us a bonus-point try. We also kicked a ball out directly. Against a team like Clermont, it’s just too much – we were under the cosh the whole time.
“We just couldn’t get our hands on the ball to play the rugby we want, nor did we kick probably as we were trying to kick. Clermont turned up a little bit of the heat, but we fell right into it, for the reasons I just said.
“I think losing Dan du Plessis (before the game to illness), Ernst van Rhyn (knee) and Gary Porter (rib) all by the end of the first half of the game was quite a big disruption for us … especially the exit lineouts were tough.”
The Stormers now travel home to prepare for this Saturday’s clash against London Irish at Cape Town Stadium (7.30pm kickoff), and have to sort out their kicking game and defence.
Also, Van Rhyn and Porter are unlikely to feature, although Springboks Frans Malherbe and Marvin Orie should return from their break.
“It’s a really upset change-room. They’ve been through a game like this, where we felt we threw it away,” Dobson said.
“We are much better for this experience. For your first European game, if you had to design it, you couldn’t get much harder than coming here. And there is so much that we can remedy, so we are quite excited for the rest of the tournament, to be honest.
“There was stuff that we could have done better – the obvious mistakes that you would’ve seen, like the knock-ons in the 22, or the kicks directly out. That’s one element.
“And then secondly, where we were poor, we suddenly – having been imperious with the contestables (kicks) in the first half – we weren’t anything like that in the second half.”
Points-Scorers
Clermont 24 – Tries: Alex Newsome, Alivereti Raka. Conversion: Jules Plisson (1). Penalties: Plisson (3). Drop goal: Plisson (1)
Stormers 14 – Try: Deon Fourie. Penalties: Manie Libbok (2), Clayton Blommetjies (1)