Stormers look to close skills gap

17 January 2017 - 10:13 By Craig Ray
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Image: Matthew Lewis

Knowing that this year's Super rugby schedule pits the Stormers against strong New Zealand opposition, coach Robbie Fleck will be placing emphasis on skills development and better fitness for his team.

The Stormers started their pre-season late last year with Fleck challenging players to be more professional in their approach to training.

The lack of conditioning has been a problem for South African teams in all levels in comparison to their New Zealand counterparts and part of the reason is the way Kiwi players approach training.

They are prepared to put in extra hours outside formal practice times and the Stormers are looking to instil some of that behaviour in their own squad this season to close the gap in 2017.

The Stormers went to Hermanus for a camp last week after returning from their festive season break and former Blues skills coach Paul Feeney started working with the group.

"In November we set ourselves some new challenges and some new goals," Fleck told the media after the Hermanus camp.

"We needed to make a few changes in our set-up and the way we approach things. Skills were a major focus for us, hence Paul Feeney joining us.

"He has had many sessions, where he honed the players' skills - not only in catching and passing - but more so in vision, decision-making and communication."

Last year the Stormers only played against South African, Australian, Argentinian and Japanese teams in the pool phase.

This year they will face all five New Zealand franchises in the pool phase.

"Everything is in line for us to becoming a better team. We want to help the players become more natural in their skills and conditioning," Fleck said.

"We certainly feel that there are parts of our fitness that we can improve on.

"I don't think it is a case of being running fit, it is about being a little bit more accurate in certain aspects of our fitness.

"South African players are big and strong but need to be able to use their physicality a little bit smarter and be more comfortable in those dark spaces.

"From the players' perspective we had to make some major changes, not just in the way we see the game, but the way we see ourselves and our professional approach.

"We had a really good off-season period during which we worked hard for about six weeks and enforced some of those changes," he said.

- TMG Digital

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