Well beaten but Stormers' effort may not have been in vain

When a team loses 53-16 it is usually hard to find any positives and if the DHL Stormers want to take a place at the top table of world club rugby, which was director of rugby John Dobson’s stated ambition not long ago, then losses like that can’t be excused under any circumstances.

And yet it is hard to really know what to think after the Stormers were well beaten by Harlequins in their second Investec Champions Cup match at the Twickenham Stoop at the weekend. As in when the teams lined up, and you saw how callow much of the Stormers pack was and how well the Quins unit, with several England internationals, stacked up, did anyone really expect a different result?

Having seen an equally understrength and yet quite a bit more experienced Hollywoodbets Sharks team put to the sword by the Leicester Tigers in the televised game immediately prior to that (the end scorelines in the two games were freakily similar), there wasn’t much hope of the Stormers being competitive.

The analysts in the Supersport studio summed it up beforehand when they appeared to be wincing at what might happen to the young Stormers team. Yet at halftime there was mention of a possible “W” from those same analysts.

It was never going to happen as the Harlequins had already scored three tries and were taking control, and there was no way such an inexperienced Stormers team was going to overturn the 19-6 halftime deficit. But the positivity wasn’t misplaced. For 30 minutes the Stormers more than competed, and it was only at the 30 minute mark that they were headed for the first time in the game.

FROM POTENTIAL VIEWPOINT IT WASN’T ALL BAD

Given that a completely different Stormers team will take the field in Saturday’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship derby against the Emirates Lions, the defeat shouldn’t have an impact on the confidence going into that game. Just as the reverse at Welford Road shouldn’t impact on the Sharks if they are getting the bulk of their missing Springboks back for Saturday’s big clash with the Vodacom Bulls.

But what the game was really all about for the Stormers, who lets face it really conceded any interest in competing for Champions Cup silverware when they lost their home match to Toulon the week before, was about assessing depth and potential. And in both instances, particularly if you remember that the current Stormers injury crisis means that even the best available team is well short at the moment of being anywhere near full strength, it wasn’t all bad. There were a couple of players introduced to Champions Cup rugby for the first time who had yet to even play at URC level, and Dobson was rightly happy afterwards with most of their individual performances.

“I thought the new guys who haven’t played much for the Stormers did well, Vernon Matongo (debutant loosehead prop) was superb, Louw Nel (looseforward) was really good,” said Dobson.

“Johnny Roche (inside centre) when he came on on debut too, those guys took their opportunities really well. Connor Evans (lock) was good, Sazi Sandi (tighthead prop) was much better. It was a curious game, I don’t think any of those guys played particularly poorly but we got well beaten.”

PUNISHED FOR LACK OF SELECTION CONTINUITY

Dobson went on to lament an uncharacteristically poor Stormers defensive effort (actually it wasn’t always bad, at times it was pretty good) and discipline (there were three yellow cards shown to the Stormers) and summed it up by saying it equated to a poor performance, yet Dobson is not stupid so he will also know that continuity is important in a team sport like rugby.

Most of the Stormers combinations would either not have played together before or at least not played together for a while. And not at a level that even roughly equates to the “step up” that Dobson agreed Champions Cup rugby is.

There was no choice but to go understrength or the URC derbies would have been compromised, but just like John Plumtree’s second team was punished earlier in the evening for the fact it had not played together since October, so the Stormers team that played at the Stoop was punished for effectively being a scratch combination. Yes, they’d trained together obviously, but how often had they played a big game together?

MOERAT SUMMED IT UP BEST

Given all of that, the words of the Stormers skipper might really sum up how we should feel about the Stormers’ effort in London: ““For those first 30 minutes we really did well and were in the game, but it was just lapses in concentration. Our basic one-on-on tackling let them back into the game. At the end of the day it’s going to be very hard chasing a game like that… But those first 30 minutes is really the potential this group has, and if we can pull it together for longer periods we’ll be good for it.”

Once Harlequins were more than a score ahead there was only going to be one result, but the Stormers looked to salvage something and perhaps they did in the form of the last try of the game, which was completed by the prodigiously talented 19-year-old JC Mars.

Wandisile Simelane, who I thought had his best game in the Stormers jersey, at least in terms of attack, featured prominently in the buildup and should have added to Dobson’s options as he gets down to the real here and now business of preparing for the arrival of the Lions in what amounts to a must win URC derby.