Stormers captain Deon Fourie was clearly disheartened with his teams’ lack of performance in the United Rugby Championship game agains the Bulls at Loftus on Saturday, referring to their mistakes as stupid.
Fourie could not hide his disappointment after the game and did not want to use the wet conditions or the delayed kick-off as excuses.
“You can’t search for excuses, it was the same for the Bulls as well. It’s part of nature.
“It wasn’t slippery at all. A bit of rain, but the ball was dry. Individual errors, cynical, I almost want to call it stupid. That’s how I felt during the game. Stupid errors,” Fourie said.
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“Against a quality Bulls side that is on form now, they are going to punish you and that’s exactly what happened tonight.
“We just kept on playing catch-up rugby and tried to force stuff. You’ve got to pitch to force that stuff.
“I don’t know mentally… don’t have the answers yet, have to go watch the game,” the captain commented sitting next to head coach John Dobson, who nodded his head in agreement.
“A team that starts well in these type of games gets the upper hand and I think they put us under pressure from minute one. Our own fault – kick off, knock the ball, corner, maul try. Penalty, over, ten points. Not even ten minutes gone in the game.
“So you are always playing catch-up rugby. And up in the Highveld it takes you the first ten minutes just to get in it. It’s not an excuse, but I think we were own worst enemies tonight in all aspects of the game,” said.
According to Fourie they did not manage to do the small things right, and ultimately it added to their demise.
“Clinically, small stuff that’s basic stuff. I think we spoke about it in the change room. Small basic stuff that loses you games and that’s what happened tonight,” he concluded.
Dobson added to that, saying: “Just uncharacteristic mistakes we made, discipline really frustrated me, frustrated us.
“If you give away seven or eight penalties in a row at the start of the game, you are going to struggle to get into the game.
“I think it is also important to give credit to the Bulls for creating such an occasion, for playing like they did, putting us under the pressure they did. It’s like with the penalties, not that we thought ‘Oh hell, the ref has it wrong’. They put us under pressure,” Dobson said.
“It was a good Bulls performance and a good occasion for South African rugby. I would have liked to make it closer, get a bonus point. It felt a bit uncharacteristic of us in terms of the errors and discipline.”
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