The URC the toughest it’s ever been: Stormers coach Dobson

Four defeats on the spin have left the Stormers becalmed and their usually ebullient coach John Dobson short of a quip.

It has also served to firm the coach's suspicion that the United Rugby Championship (URC) is getting tougher into belief.

Wins over the Lions and the Scarlets at the start of the campaign have been offset by away defeats against Glasgow Warriors, Benetton Treviso, Munster and Cardiff Blues.

What would have been particularly frustrating for Dobson was last Friday's defeat to Cardiff when the inaugural URC champions were in touching distance of victory before again squandering the opportunity.

Dobson, who saw his team surge to the final in the first two instalments of the tournament, has had much to digest over the past month.

“It’s been a poor tour for us and as our skipper, Brok Harris, said in the changing room, we all need to have a look at ourselves, at what we could have done better right the way through,” he told Unitedrugby.com.

“The two games we probably identified to win — Benetton and Cardiff — we chucked away, which is very disappointing.

“As a collective, we haven’t done ourselves any favours on our tour. I don’t think the competition thinks more of us, I don't think some of the players or staff feel as good about themselves as we did.”

Dobson said his team would have settled for two wins on the road.

After their solid performance in a narrow defeat to Munster, the Stormers were hoping to leave Cardiff with a victory under the belt. That was not to be after a well below par second-half performance that saw them commit too many elementary errors.

“Cardiff played with real fight, but we were extremely poor,” Dobson said candidly.

“For us to give seven scrum put-ins in the second half just through losing the ball in contact or by knocking on is not good enough at URC level. There was some pretty careless handling.”

Apart from a failure to take control of the ball, their defence left them more to lament.

“We pride ourselves on our defence, but we are hurting because it wasn’t our best defensive performance by any stretch. We gave too many yards, we gave them space on the outside, they got round us, we didn’t work hard enough for a couple of their tries.

“Other than the set-piece, it was a really poor performance — defence, attack, the contestable game, the kicking game.”

Dobson described it as their worst performance on tour. He has no doubt the URC is getting tougher.

“I feel it’s even more competitive this season, very much so. Everywhere you look, there’s a fixture or two you can’t predict. I get the feeling no-one is going to pull away. We are all in a dog fight, there’s no question.”

They are, however, presented an opportunity to get back on track this weekend when they host Zebre Parma in Stellenbosch on Saturday.

“We have a lot of work to do. We will have some personnel back, we will play some games at home and we will start putting together some much better performances.”

Dobson, however, will need no reminding, Zebre are only one place below the Stormers on the points table and a shock win in Stellenbosch will take them above the former champs.