'Stupid' Stormers lament missed opportunities

The Cape side went down 10-22 in Durban ahead of the June international break. It was the Stormers' fifth loss in their last six games in this year's Super Rugby tournament.

Fleck said his team were again guilty of throwing away a number of try-scoring opportunities in their latest defeat.

"When we got line-breaks, they worked incredibly hard to get back to reset their line," Fleck told reporters after the match.

"When we were close to their line, they defended well. 

"I think we were pretty stupid. We took wrong options when we were threatening on their line. Again, it is something that we will work on.

"They defended well, but I also felt we really spread them and had them in sixes and sevens, but again it was poor decision-making, poor option taking and execution that obviously let us down."

Although the Stormers have a healthy lead over the Cheetahs and Bulls in Africa Conference One, Fleck said that it was still important they win games ahead of the play-offs.

"It was important that we won this game. We just come off a tough tour and then a good win against the Blues. For us, it was important to win. 

"It has got nothing to do about the log points or anything like that. We haven't qualified yet. There are still three games to go. We are not thinking about what the Bulls or the Cheetahs are doing, it is about us and improving every week and we didn't do that today [Saturday]. 

"There were patches that were good, but we let ourselves down with our execution and our decision-making was poor at times. 

"There were so many opportunities out there for us that we could have converted on, but we didn't.

"We are not proud of the performance to be honest," Fleck added.

Stormers captain Siyamthanda Kolisi said his team cannot use the same excuse every time they lose.

"We can't do the same thing [mistakes] and keep on saying we are learning. We want to make this thing right, we can't be learning every week," said Kolisi.

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