John Dobson didn’t sugarcoat the Stormers’ humbling 61-10 defeat to Harlequins in the Investec Champions Cup on Sunday. MORNÉ ESBEN reports.
The director of rugby branded the performance at The Stoop as “desperately disappointing” in both execution and outcome.
“While we did leave a few players in Cape Town, we still thought we had a team that could compete better. We were hoping to get a point at least out of the game, but we didn’t really come close,” Dobson lamented.
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It was a sobering afternoon for a Stormers side that had enjoyed a perfect start to their Champions Cup campaign, only to be blown away by a Harlequins outfit that arrived under pressure after heavy domestic defeats.
The warning signs were there early. Quins dominated the breakdown and punished Stormers indiscipline, racing to a 33-0 half-time lead after five unanswered tries. Dobson pinpointed that area, along with defensive failures, as decisive.
“A desperately disappointing performance. I thought we got beaten most importantly at the breakdown and defensively, not really up to our standard,” he said. “We probably also didn’t stick to our plan of what we wanted to do on attack.”
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Despite the scale of the defeat, Dobson insists the bigger picture remains intact, with qualification for the last 16 within reach.
“We’ve learned a lesson now. We always knew that three out of four should get us to the last 16 so that’s still on track,” he said.
“But Leicester now becomes a really big game at Cape Town Stadium [on Saturday] and it’s in our hands. We win the game, we should host a playoff.”
“We’re looking forward to Cape Town,” Dobson added. “But we will have to be much better than we were today.”
Photo: Warren Little/Getty Images
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