Cape Town - One would think that the Stormers’ first-ever clash against Connacht in Galway would deliver lots to talk about, but it turns out that the only match-related topic doing the rounds is the officiating … again.
The Stormers went down 19-17 against the Irish side at the Sportsground, and while there were a decent number of factors that could be highlighted after the game - like Damian Willemse’s standout display at inside centre, the Cape side’s massive mauling meters, their stunning defence in the first half, the weather conditions, and so on - it was the referee’s performance that stole the show for all the wrong reasons.
Ben Blair was the man in the middle, and while Stormers head coach John Dobson and captain Steven Kitshoff didn’t criticise the Scottish official, they voiced some of their frustrations with the ref.
Speaking after the game, Dobson compared their experience in Galway to their introduction to the United Rugby Championship.
"It felt like that last tour when we were here and adapting to a slightly different realm, especially around the scrum and the maul," Dobson said.
While Connacht were penalised only a handful of times, the Stormers were dealt a very different hand.
They were also at the receiving end of two yellow cards to Sergeal Petersen and Ruhan Nel in the second half, with Connacht scoring on both occasions.
"The penalty count was a concern, and we'll have to have a look at it,” Dobson said.
"The jump from local derbies to a northern hemisphere game up here was always going to require a certain level of adaptation, and maybe we weren't fast enough or sharp enough there.
"Cross-playing will help. When they come down to us, we can try to get these styles to match up. I think you would all agree that what we saw over the local derbies - especially at scrum and maul time - wasn't what we saw today in terms of teams getting rewarded or penalised or how you can defend mauls.
"I think the more we play each other, the more we'll get some form of uniformity. I don't want to say much more than that, but it was a source of frustration for us."
Kitshoff also shared his thoughts on the officiating and singled out the mauls and the calls around the area as a big source of frustration.
"The mauling was very frustrating," Kitshoff said.
"I felt we had complete dominance when it came to maul time, and we didn't get any reward out of it.
"There were some cynical penalties that were missed. I'm not bad-mouthing the ref at all, but there were clear penalties missed, and it was very frustrating. We'll have a look at what went wrong and then discuss it with the refs prior to the games, but it was very frustrating not to get more reward out of those amazing maul meters we made."
The Stormers - who moved down to ninth on the log - next face Zebre Parma on Sunday, March 13.
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