Stormers coach John Dobson bemoaned individual errors and indiscipline after his side’s 38-38 stalemate with Ulster in Belfast on Friday night.
The visitors snatched a dramatic draw through a last-minute penalty try after referee Andrea Piardi ruled that Ulster scrumhalf Nathan Doak had made shoulder-to-head contact with Leolin Zas as the winger went for the corner.
However, the two points dropped proved costly in the Vodacom URC title race, with the Glasgow Warriors moving above the Stormers into top spot following their 40-17 win against Cardiff.
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Dobson admitted there was relief at escaping Belfast with three log points, but felt his side should have won comfortably.
“It’s probably a mixture of frustration that we didn’t get five points, because I thought at times our dominance was pretty imperious,” he said. “But in the end we’re probably lucky to get the three.”
The Stormers scored five tries in a pulsating encounter, with flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu grabbing a brace, but also let several scoring opportunities slip through handling errors and ill-discipline.
“There were four clear moments,” Dobson said. “The two pick-and-go penalties we conceded – one of which is a 14-point swing – then Evan [Roos’] knock-on on the tryline from a pick-and-go, and another knock-on when we were played in.
“Those are four clear tries, and that’s without the general ‘what-ifs’. So that was frustrating – some of our mistakes.
“I thought our fight was good – the scrambling defence – but we fell off at times,” he added. “And very disappointing discipline: offside penalties, soft penalties, which put us under pressure.”
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The Cape side also struggled in the aerial battle despite placing a strong emphasis on contestable kicking in recent weeks.
“I think the most disappointing thing, in very tough conditions with a swirling wind, was the contestable kicking game,” said Dobson.
“We’ve worked so hard to become good at that, and we lost one or two of those contests. We were probably slightly behind them in the air, which hasn’t been the case for a while.”
The Stormers were unable to generate their usual dominance up front.
“We’re a team that has relied a lot on scrum and maul penalties to get territory and attack,” Dobson said. “But we didn’t get that reward. We had one scrum on our ball, which is normally where you get penalties, and they stopped our mauls very effectively.
“So we had to find another way, and I thought that was very pleasing – that we could still score tries and get on top of them without that dominance.
“It’s definitely a game we feel we should have won, without taking anything away from Ulster,” he added.
Photo: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images
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