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Cape Town - Former Springbok coach Nick Mallett heavily criticised the Stormers following their 17-all draw with the Sunwolves in Singapore at the weekend.
A try from replacement prop Vincent Koch after the full-time siren enabled the Cape side to take a share of the spoils in a game they deserved to lose.
The Stormers were heavy favourites beforehand but produced an alarmingly lacklustre performance which Mallett criticised in the SuperSport studio afterwards.
The former Bok mentor said: “It was a shocking performance by the Stormers. They looked overconfident, and they were really poor with ball in hand, going sideways instead of forward. Their defence was too passive and frankly they looked half asleep. This was a serious case of overconfidence and a lack of experience in key positions. The Stormers were very lucky to come away with a draw today.
“They just didn’t take the opposition seriously enough. When you play a team that you should dominate, you must dominate with your forwards. So many times today, the scrum was going forward, but instead of milking the penalty and kicking to the corner to set up a driving maul or kick a penalty goal, the Stormers tried to play ball-in-hand rugby and that played right into the Sunwolves’ hands. I don’t know what happened with the Stormers. Their tactics were just wrong.”
For Mallett, the game was similar to the Springboks’ shock 34-32 defeat to Japan in Brighton in last year’s World Cup.
“This reminded me of the Springboks’ performance against Japan in the World Cup. If you want to win a rugby game, you have to get all the basics right. An example of this, which South African teams need to look at, is the Highlanders-Crusaders game. There was no problem with defence, attacking and/or defensive kicking, the set pieces were incredibly intense and there was great off-loading when going forward. What we’re trying to do is play an off-loading game without dominating physically and that doesn’t cut it."
