Cheetahs looking for killer instinct
The Cheetahs took heart from their fighting second half performance on Saturday but left Newlands with yet another losing bonus point and an all too familiar sense of frustration.
The Free State team have been criticised for not being able to close games out this season but they found themselves having to stage the comeback when an ill-disciplined first-half display had them under serious pressure against the Stormers.
They managed to claw their way back into contention in an encouraging second-half display but could not gather enough momentum to overhaul the Stormers and walked away with another competitive loss.
Coach Naka Drotske explained: "We spoke a lot about discipline at half-time, we said all week that 65 percent of the Stormers points this season come from penalties, they have got good goal-kickers so you can't concede penalties and we did exactly that, stupid penalties and we were trailing 16-0 at half-time."
The Cheetahs coach was encouraged by the fact that his team conceded only one try away from home as they have worked on tightening up their defence which has let them down at crucial stages this season.
"We worked hard on our defence in the last couple of weeks, the big problem for us this season has been lapses of concentration on defence at critical times, especially when we are leading. We have lost three or four games where we were leading by 10 to 15 points because of a lack of concentration so we worked on that to get the guys to defend for 80 minutes," he said.
Despite the positives of their spirited fight back and more convincing defensive display the solitary bonus point was little consolation for Drotske who has seen his team's play-off chances this season undone by a plague of narrow losses.
"That is the most frustrating thing about our season so far, we have been outplayed once against the Bulls in Bloemfontein all the others we won four and lost the rest within seven points, but more frustrating fact is against the Lions in Joburg, the Highlanders, the Brumbies - we were leading by 15 to 20 points and then losing it, so mentally we talked a lot about that.
"I am not sure exactly what the reason is maybe we lack experience in certain positions but we are trying to get that right because if it wasn't for that we could be in the running for the play-offs still," he pointed out.
Drotske said that considering the pressure on Johan Goosen's replacement recently he felt it was best to take Sias Ebersohn out of the spotlight, and expressed confidence in the abilities of his replacement Riaan Smit.
"The game against the Highlanders confidence-wise was a blow to him [Ebersohn], he is a quality player but I think it is time to give Riaan a bit of space and let him play and get the pressure off Sias," he explained.
By Michael de Vries, at Newlands