Game management isn’t bought at Checkers … but Damian Willemse growing
CAPE TOWN – Stormers coach John Dobson says he was really pleased with flyhalf Damian Willemse’s performance in their 23-17 Super Rugby Unlocked win against the Lions at Newlands on Saturday.
While the team performance isn’t one that will go down as one of the Stormers’ finest outings (it was quite poor, actually), there were a number of solid individual ones, and for Dobson, Willemse was one of them, especially looking at the difference between his productions at the weekend compared to the Springbok Showdown.
Collectively, the Stormers’ handling was far from superb in the first half as they made a number of handling errors and, overall, when they were without the ball, their defence could also have held up better at times. On attack, there is no doubt that Dobson would be happy with some more continuity.
But the fact that this was their first competitive game – while the Lions came off the back of a nail-biting contest at Kings Park the previous week – would certainly also have played a role in how undercooked they looked in that first 40.
They did well to fight back, however, as they came back from a 6-9 deficit at halftime to score two tries and a penalty conversion in the second half.
On Willemse’s performance, Dobson said: “Credit to Damian Willemse, I think you guys would all agree.
He went from that horrible experience two weeks ago to today, so I’m really pleased for him. I’m actually a bit sorry that he moved (to fullback) because I wanted him to build an innings and he was going really nicely at flyhalf, so it’s a pity that happened.
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