Stephen Nell

Cape Town – The Stormers want to apply the lessons they learned in last year’s Currie Cup semi-final in Saturday’s Super 14 play-off against the Waratahs at Newlands.

While many supporters still blame Fijian wing Sireli Naqelevuki for Western Province’s 19-21 defeat, the Cape side believes their poor start in that game was to blame.

“The big thing is to learn from that game because that is our history. We shot ourselves in the foot in the first 20 minutes,” said Stormers forwards coach Matthew Proudfoot.

The Bulls led 12-0 after just 19 minutes.

“We were over-eager and inaccurate. We tried difficult things when we should have done the same things as before but just execute them better,” said Proudfoot.

“Every time this team plays rugby and imposes itself, things go well. It’s important that we find our feet as quickly as possible against the Waratahs. We could not do it against the Sharks recently and the end result was that we did not have attacking opportunities in the first half.”

The other lesson that the Stormers can take from their recent past is their losses to Australian teams.

“We learned that the Aussies have good systems in place to beat your physicality. We have to understand their systems and not allow ourselves to be beaten by it.”

The Stormers lost to the Brumbies, Western Force and Reds this year.