Stormers head coach John Dobson FILE - Stormers head coach John Dobson. Photo: Ashley Crowden/INPHO/Shutterstock/BackpagePix
Cape Town — The Stormers might not have secured an unbeaten record on their overseas tour, but coach John Dobson isn't an unhappy man.
The defending champions' 15-match unbeaten run came to an end with their 30-24 defeat to Cardiff in Wales on Saturday.
Last week, the Cape side had to settle for a 16-16 draw against Ospreys in wet conditions, but managed to beat Zebre in their first game abroad.
Speaking after the defeat at Cardiff Arms Park, Dobson said: “To emerge from this tour with nine points from three games, it’s not the end of the world. We knew these would be two tough games and they certainly were.
"So, to get that many points from three games having not played particularly well is a positive. Other positives were that we deliberately tried to get into the low 30s for the number of players used on the tour.
“Guys like Suleiman (Hartzenberg) and Sacha (Mngomezulu) would’ve learnt a lot from something like today. Also, in a kind of positive way, not having people talk about a record all the time is quite nice, to get that off our back, not that we wanted to do that.
"Technically, we worked a lot on our maul and to see how that went today was really good. Our lineout in those conditions against good contesters was good as well as the general effort from the group throughout.
“Cardiff in these conditions on this field was always going to be a tough game. So I can’t fault our effort. I thought the Welsh teams played very cleverly, especially Cardiff this evening. The way they sort of manipulated our back three was brilliant.”
The Stormers now travel back home to take on the Lions at Ellis Park this Saturday.
IOL Sport
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