United Rugby Championship: John Dobson grateful for Lions win after Stormers ‘worst performance’

Stormers coach John Dobson was content with a win against the Lions from what he described as his side’s “worst performance”.

Dobson’s men claimed a 31-22 win over the Lions thanks to a powerful second half comeback from 12 points behind against the Johannesburg side.

The defending champions struggled at line-out time as hooker Joseph Dweba’s throwing accuracy again proved costly. However, Dobson believes that was only one fault on a long list from the performance.

Out of sync

“We looked absolutely disjointed … giving away 11 penalties in our half. We lost territory, we lost possession, and our discipline – absolutely awful,” Dobson said after the game.

“And our line-out – we gave up five or six in the game. We looked disjointed.

“I thought one of our faults today – in a long list of faults – was we got sucked into that distance kicking where sometimes it was just one chase; all we had to do was make that pass to play that Stormers rugby because that’s our plan, to counter, and I felt we didn’t do that, we were poor at that today.

“We do have that ability to score so-called easy tries from anywhere, but I actually think we butchered one or two.”

When the Stormers were on the ropes with the Lions in the ascendency, it was their new Springbok call-ups Manie Libbok and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu who were on hand to start the comeback.

Hard-running Springbok Evan Roos was also on hand with creative offloads and strong carries as part of the second half surge.

Praise for Libbok

Dobson credited the Springbok call-ups for their performance and singled out man-of-the-match Libbok for praise.

“I think ‘All’s well that ends well’ is probably a very good summation for us on that game. A lot of that process was poor, it was probably our worst performance, I felt,” Dobson said.

“In 2018, it was the Currie Cup final and the Springbok team was leaving that night and [for Western Province] there were a whole lot of new Springboks, and the guys were on the plane in their heads, which I can understand because you’re making the Springboks.

“But for someone like Manie Libbok to produce a performance like that, knowing [about the tour] – the worst thing he could’ve done would be to get injured – I’m very pleased with that.

“And the bench, we introduced them earlier than we usually do and people will say tactical genius, I can tell you it’s because we were worried.”

The coach is happy with the points haul from the opening six games of the United Rugby Championship season but knows his team needs to improve if they are going to defend their title.

“I wasn’t so much worried about the points because we know what we need to get into the URC playoffs, I was more worried about the mindset and the whole aura around the team,” he added.

“We had a goal of 21 points for this period – we got 24 – and we go into the break feeling slightly better about ourselves, but we’ve got to be really careful about being too self-congratulatory given the obvious errors that were out there today.”

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