Stormers are too predictable
Their so-called new expansive attacking game, which was promised before the season, has failed to light up Super Rugby this year and they have often reverted back to the brute force of their forwards in games to try and breach opposition defences.
It was no different against the Bulls where they lacked imagination out wide and were outplayed in the set piece by a robust Bulls pack.
The Bulls dominated the line-outs and scrums, effectively nullifying the Stormers main platform of attack. The line-outs in particular was a surprise seeing that the Stormers had two Springboks in the form of Pieter-Steph du Toit and Eben Etzebeth in the second row.
It seems the line-outs the Stormers lost on their own throw stemmed from the fact that some of their calls were too predictable as well.
"Our line-out has been good in our previous games and fair play to the Bulls - they were really switched on at line-out time," said Stormers forwards coach Russell Winter.
"I know they [Bulls] put a lot of hard work in last week to try and counter the line-outs from that first game we played against them.
"Our line-outs were obviously very good and so was our contesting [in that first game] and they went and put in a lot of hard work into it. They came and they pressured us. We got a fair amount of the ball - at times it was not the best ball, but we managed to win some ball at line-out time and we did not make the best of it."
The scrums was another area that did not go according to plan for the Stormers - it was an area where the Cape side gave away plenty of penalties, particularly on Oliver Kebble's side of the scrum when he was up against Springbok Marcel van der Merwe.
Like the line-outs, it (scrums) is an area the Stormers will need to work on ahead of their meeting with the Cheetahs this weekend.
"I think it was a really good battle at scrum time," Winter added.
"We didn't get any of the calls, but I think one or two maybe could have gone our way. There were occasions when they [Bulls] were definitely on top of us. They are a really good scrummaging unit and they showed that in the last couple of games they played, so we knew it was going to be tough there
"In saying that, I also thought there were one or two occasions when we had the upper hand on them. It was a tough day at the office when it came to the set piece. It's good for us to look back and say we need to work harder and obviously make sure we are better for it this coming weekend."
The Stormers have not won a game in the last month now and have relinquished top spot to the Bulls in Africa Conference One. They have also fallen to ninth position on the combined standings.
However, there is still a lot of optimism within the squad.
"Our hopes are still high to make the play-offs," said hooker Mbongeni Mbonambi.
"There are still a few games to go - we are looking forward to getting a win this weekend to get to a better position on the log."
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