Meaningless platitudes won’t help the Stormers walk the walk

It was interesting and also quite revealing being on John Dobson’s press conference call from Glasgow where on Friday night his DHL Stormers team was outplayed 36-18 by Glasgow Warriors.

What was revealing was just how much the Cape media have warmed to Dobson’s likeable personality, to his honesty, to his whole approach to the game and the aspects of the sport around the game and off the field that are as important a part of the coaching job as getting the team to win on the field.

Dobson is the antithesis of, for example, former Sharks coach Robert du Preez, or Michael Cheika or Eddie Jones.

The Stormers had just lost their season defining game, one where they felt they had a lot of hope of winning given the many Glasgow injuries, and yet it felt like everyone was desperately trying to look for hope among the wreckage, a reason for Dobson to put a smile back on his dial and feel better.

It felt like everyone was trying to rewind the clock to before the game had happened to look for Stormers strong points.

That the Stormers do have strong points and do have hope going forward should be undeniable. Yes, yes, yes…the Stormers scrum was solid, and even better when youngster Vernon Matongo came on with Sazi Sandi and the departing Joseph Dweba in the second half.

But we all knew that. Dobson had spoken about that after the home wins that got his team to the Scotstoun.

THEY WERE WELL SHORT ON THE NIGHT

There was a clear will to feed Dobson some straws to light up his night. But Dobson to his credit, although being a realist and clearly being mature enough as a coach to realise the sun was set to rise again in the morning and life would go on, didn’t really look like he wanted to be served pointless platitudes that wouldn’t change the fact that he and his team came well short on the night.

And of course he shouldn’t have.

This wasn’t really a time to be discussing the growth of depth and the scrumming culture that had been developed, but to own up to the reality that this was a game where the Stormers were far from the only team impacted by injury, suspension etc, and which Dobson was confident his team could win. He said it would be a disappointment not to get over the line.

As it turned out, the Stormers never came anywhere near the line that separates the winners from the losers. And while last year the corresponding game was closer than the end scoreline might have suggested (17 points then against 18 now), this wasn’t one of those games.

The Stormers were not only outplayed, they were out-thought and also out-coached.

When it was my turn to ask a question I directed it around my own view of why the Stormers came short. I asked Dobson if maybe he felt he made a mistake by changing his plans for the last league game against Cardiff and fielding a changed up team from the one that had smashed Benetton and the Dragons before that.

PLAYED LIKE THEY HADN’T PLAYED IN THREE WEEKS

He’d said at the time that he acknowledged it was a gamble, and given how several players who hadn’t played in three weeks played like players and combinations that hadn’t played in three weeks once they did get back onto the field for a game, it was in my book a gamble that failed.

As was the decision to go with an outside centre in Suleiman Hartzenberg, remember too this is a position that directs the defence, who had only played there once this season and that was in a losing cause against Ulster back in March.

Dobson to his credit was honest, as he always is - once he understood the question, he admitted it may have been a gamble that didn’t work. It might have been why No 8 Evan Roos seemed almost incapable of holding onto the ball in contact, thus undermining those of us who’d criticised Bok coach Rassie Erasmus for leaving Roos out of his latest alignment camp.

On the evidence of just the Scotstoun game, Erasmus is right.

The three weeks of not playing a game might also explain why hooker Andre-Hugo Venter and lock Ruben van Heerden had a night they’d want to forget in the lineouts.

Everyone on the press conference call seemed eager to laud Dobson for the fight his team showed, but it wasn’t lack of fight that let the Stormers down at the Scotstoun, although admittedly Glasgow did appear to bring much more intensity, but their apparent lack of connectedness as a team.

PLAYERS HAVING FIGHT SHOULD BE A GIVEN

We all do it, but lauding a defeated team for being courageous, committed or having fight doesn’t really fit at the professional level of the game. Complimenting players for having fighting spirit really belongs at schools level, and junior schools level at that rather than high school.

It’s for when you want to encourage kids who might otherwise become disheartened. It’s a bit like the “most improved in the class” award - you give it to the dumb bloke, not the clever bloke.

The reality is that while the loss in Glasgow shouldn’t derail the Stormers’ growth and the future Dobson is building towards, it was a performance and a result to be unhappy about, a night when the hurt should have been felt.

And the down points should be lived and felt as much as the high points are celebrated. The platitudes shouldn’t help and neither should obsequiousness.

Last year might have been different, but this time the post-Glasgow mood should not be one of looking for consolation in defeat. Reality needs to be looked squarely in the face.

It was a night that the Stormers got it wrong. Dobson was right in suggesting that his team’s inability to get across the gainline should be a big concern for him as he looks ahead.

NOT FIRST TIME THEY’VE LOOKED DISORGANISED OVERSEAS

Packing a team with X-factor players and thinking that lumping them together will somehow work and they will create attacking magic can’t be the sum of the plan, wonderfully though it works when the Stormers play at home.

Scotstoun was far from the first time this season that the Stormers have looked less organised than their opponents in an overseas game. It wasn’t the first time that they have appeared to conspire against themselves. That needs to be got right. And the responsibility is as much in the coaching box as it is for the players.

Out thought, out coached, and in my view anyway also out selected - if the Stormers own that rather than listen to the platitudes they may well come back stronger next season and go further.

And perhaps a little bit of the Franco Smith personality should be observed too - he’s a no nonsense coach and while it would be wrong to make big changes, the introduction of a bit of a harder edge, and emphasis on the bid D which in this instance means discipline, might not be remiss either.