Stormers bullied by physical Glasgow, says Dobson

The Herald

2 days ago

The Stormers were bullied when they crashed to a heavy 36-18 defeat against Glasgow Warriors in a United Rugby Championship quarterfinal clash, coach John Dobson said.
In the aftermath of a devastating loss at Scotstoun Stadium on Friday, a perplexed Dobson said he did not know how his team would be able to fix their inability to dominate the gain line.
The victory kept Glasgow's hopes of lifting back-to-back URC titles alive after they beat the Bulls 21-16 in the 2024 final at Loftus Versfeld Stadium.
'I think we were bullied physically, everything went wrong, and they put us under pressure,' Dobson said.
'To get so well beaten is very disappointing for us and I was probably our worst game of the season.
'Things like the line-outs and technical stuff we can fix and we also lost the technical battle and we can work on that.
'What worried me a little bit was the gain line and I thought Glasgow were physically very good and we got bullied there.
'I'm not sure how easy it is to fix that. Maybe we should spend more time in the gym. I don't know.
'Physically, they really got stuck into us and that is poor and I don't know how we fix that.
'We were well beaten by Glasgow.
'Things that we thought would not go wrong went wrong, like our line-outs.
'But all credit to Glasgow and the way they play.
'Their attack was really good and they ran with purpose.'
The defeat left Dobson saying farewell to several players on a low note.
Joseph Dweba, Herschel Jantjies and Ben Loader have now played their last game for the Stormers before leaving the franchise.
'It's actually sitting pretty tough in the throat,' he said.
'We didn't think we were not going to be playing next week.
'The guys are really, really distraught and it's not the way I want to say goodbye to these guys who, as I say, have put a lot in.
'We really, honestly, in our heart of hearts believed we'd be playing next week.
'I think after the last try, in the last half an hour, we were just playing very, very poorly and they put us under a lot of pressure.
'We weren't getting any yardage in our carry and [made] a plethora of mistakes. Massive credit to Glasgow for their defence a nd their ability with ball in hand.
'If we're going to kick as inaccurately as we kicked tonight [on Friday], with their attack they will punish us.
'We'd been going 90% line-outs for the last four games, then suddenly dropped in the 70s; dropped down to giving away 17 line breaks; dropped down to 65% tackle completion, which is a credit to Glasgow [in terms of] how they attacked.
'But we kept our worst performance probably in a couple of years for a knockout game, which is really disappointing.'
Warriors head coach Franco Smith: 'We were a little bit off it at the end of the regular season but I'm glad we could bounce back in the quarterfinal.
'We speak the whole season about the quality of the competition and the quality of the sides. There was no easy game — always tough.
'Rory Darge played well; Henco Venter and Tom Jordan were also excellent against the Stormers.
'It's good to have played Friday night.
'We get to wait and see and whatever comes our way, we will make sure we recover well.
'The boys have learnt and adapted. They really work hard and they believe in what we do.'
The Herald