Head coach Matt Sherratt expects the DHL Stormers to employ a “high risk” approach on ‘D’ against Cardiff when the teams clash in the Welsh capital on Friday night.
The Stormers face the Welsh outfit in round 6 of the Vodacom URC at Arms Park. John Dobson’s men dropped to ninth on the standings with a 10-3 defeat against Munster last week, while Cardiff drew 22-22 with Zebre Parma in Italy.
Cardiff are on a three-match winless run but they’ve shared the spoils in two matches against the Stormers, who are desperate to cap off a disappointing four-week tour with a win.
Quoted on the club’s official website, Sherratt likened the Stormers defence to that of the World Cup-winning Springboks, while in attack he can see similarities in how Cardiff like to play the game.
“They’ve got a very high-risk defence, so their defence is like the Springbok defence, it’s get off the line, take a man,” he said.
“Regardless, if you’ve got two attackers outside their last defender, they’re going, so they will put pressure on your skill set.
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“They’re trying to force a turnover so they can quickly get the ball into their best athletes hands and that’s how they play their rugby.
“Probably going back to how we like to play, they’ve got license so they can be on their own try line and if there’s an opportunity for a quick throw or a quick tap or a two V one, they’re going to go for it.”
Sherratt was pleased with Cardiff’s performance against a tough Zebre outfit, but regretted a few of key decisions not going their way as well as a couple of errors.
“It was a tough one. The manner of how it ended was tough because I just felt the players deserved more, really. But in sport, you don’t always get what you deserve,” he added.
“I thought defensively we were amazing for those six minutes, really. We had chances before that. We need to be a little bit more clinical in the 22, a couple of little errors.
“But I’ve been to Zebre, it’s always tight there. We won last year and it went down to the last play of the game, so it’s always a tough place to go.”
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