Cape Town – Stormers coach John Dobson praised his side for their courage to beat Ulster after being under the pump for the greater part of the second half of their United Rugby Championship (URC) battle at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.
The victory took the Stormers to sixth on the log, while Ulster remain in second spot.
Leading 20-13 at halftime, Ulster turned things around in the second half, while the Stormers had to do most of the defending and only managed to get three points through a penalty in the 53rd minute, while Ulster scored a try and had one disallowed at the death.
“It was courageous,” Dobson said after the match. “There were elements of our game which are important for our growth that came out, like the scrum plan. We started with Kitsie (Steven Kitshoff) and Frans (Malherbe) and the replacements probably bailed us out.
“But that was the plan. We had Frans for 40 minutes and Kitsie for an hour. Then we had two almost international-level props in Brok (Harris) and Neethling (Fouche) coming on. It was the plan to get some reward there, but not necessarily win the game that way.
“In the last couple of weeks, we have been known for the flash and everything. But we were up against one of the best club teams in Europe, so we had to show some courage and find other ways to win it,” said Dobson.
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“We can’t say we deserved it, we were on the ropes. But we stuck in the fight and we will learn a lot from this.”
The Ulster halfbacks kept the home side pinned in their own half for a good part of the game with their kicking, and the locals’ discipline was also an issue.
“They really played well, especially the way they trapped us with those contestable kicks. We were under the pump with that kicking game,” he said.
“Our discipline also went. I don’t know whether those two issues are related. We gave only four penalties away against Cardiff, seven or eight against Zebre, but today we were in the mid-teens. I think it was because we were under so much pressure.
“I don’t think we played poorly. We were just up against a really good team who had a really good plan and they put us under a lot of pressure, but we withstood that pressure.”
Trailing by three points with less than two minutes to go, replacement prop Callum Reid got the ball over the tryline before he lost control of it.
Referee Gianluca Gnecchi awarded the Stormers a scrum after ruling that it was knocked on by the Irish prop. Speaking after the game, Ulster coach Dan McFarland voiced his frustrations with the call.
“I can’t understand why that’s not a try,” he said. “I’ve got to be careful what I say here, but I can’t understand why that’s not a try.
“If it’s not a try, then why is it a knock-on (against Ulster)? They deliberately knocked the ball out of our hands. I don’t get that. I’ll wait to hear what they have to say about it.
“In my head, we won that game, so we will move on,” he continued. “We don’t have the four log points, but there were a lot of positives.”
Commenting on their game overall, he said: “We got hit early. It was good play by them (in that period) and poor play by us. We grew as the game progressed. Our aerial game in particular. We also managed to generate a lot of momentum close to the line.”
The Stormers next host Ospreys on Saturday (6.15pm kick-off).
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