Dobson slams Stormers for poor defensive effort: 'We deserved to lose'

Dobson warned his side could miss out on the URC playoffs if they don't address what he called their "worst defensive performance in years."

Despite a 34-29 win over Connacht in a 10-try thriller at Cape Town Stadium, the Stormers were far from convincing. Connacht ran in five tries as the Stormers struggled with missed tackles, sloppy structure, and a lack of discipline.

And it looked like this Irish side had grabbed a victory at the death only for their sixth try of the evening to be ruled out by the TMO for obstruction, handing the home side a victory by the skin of their teeth.

"We deserved to lose that game, to be honest, you're not going to go far in this tournament if you defend like that," Dobson said in his post-match interview. "They opened us up at will, I thought we'd lost the game and to be honest, I thought we deserved to lose.

"We're a team that prides ourselves on defence. That's probably the worst defensive performance in years.

"I don't know what's wrong with our defence at the moment. Connacht are the best attacking team, statistically, in the competition. But that doesn't account for what we did there; slow off the line, lack of tackle fight.

"It's going to be an interesting change room now because either we change, or we go play three more home games and that's going to be it.

"Maybe it's the wake-up we needed."

The seventh-placed Stormers host Benetton next week, before ending the league schedule against Dragons (10 May) and Cardiff (16 May) in the race to the playoffs.

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