Stormers face test of mental toughness

It should be concerning to the Stormers that their second-half implosion against the Chiefs looked like a microcosm of where their season is at in that a contest they have controlled most of the way has seen a momentum shift and they are rediscovering their old habit of conspiring against themselves.

Just two weeks ago, after they beat the Sharks, they were well ahead in the race for South African conference honours. But now they look to be bottling it, just as they bottled the match in Hamilton and to some extent the previous game against the Crusaders. What must be most galling to them is that they lost two games they should have won to put the conference battle beyond doubt.

Predictably the two defeats, because of how they happened, have re-opened questions about the Stormers’ mental strength. Earlier in the year these doubts looked like they were being erased as the Stormers had made a big attempt to work on that aspect, just as they had the much-spoken-of physicality that had let them down in both the Super 14 and domestic finals last year.

When the Stormers came back from being out of it to beat the Sharks in the last minute of a pre-season friendly, and then did the same in their first Super Rugby match against the Lions, it suggested they were getting on track in their quest to be mentally strong, something that was seeing them spend a lot of time with a sports psychologist.

The Stormers started to believe they could win a game from anywhere. Or so they said, and so it seemed. With the exception of the final, the other games that the Stormers had lost in the 2010 Super 14 had been by close margins. It prompted speculation that they struggled to win the close ones, something the Kiwi commentators brought up when the Stormers fell behind in Hamilton.

In the Chiefs match, just like at stages of the match in Cape Town a week previously, the Stormers did not deliver a good riposte to those who doubt their mental strength. In both games they lost composure, or appeared to, given the number of uncharacteristic errors that were made as they tried to chase both games down. There was just a hint of panic on both occasions.

But do the Stormers become too tentative, too inhibited, too nervy when the games are close and when opposition teams take the lead late in a game? That was definitely the case last season, but to me it is not so clear-cut this year. A lot of the eight out of 11 games that they have won were by narrow margins, and they seemed pretty together when the Bulls stormed back at them in the middle stages of the match at Loftus.

Those who say that the loss to the Crusaders was an indication that the Stormers still have a problem with dealing with the pressure that comes with the really big matches also need to explain what made that a bigger match than the ones against the Sharks (twice) and the Bulls.

Given the importance of derbies under the new conference system, those three matches were arguably a lot more important from a Stormers viewpoint, and they won all three.

The second half in Hamilton was, as coach Allister Coetzee put it, a horror show and there is no denying that the Stormers bottled it. But the penalty try awarded to the Chiefs was, whichever way you look at it, a cruel bounce for the Stormers, and the ball that bounced around Conrad Jantjes just two minutes later to give the Chiefs their second try was an even crueler one.

They didn’t react well to the momentum shift, and skipper Schalk Burger said as much. But it may be unfair to judge their ability to bounce back on those last 20 minutes, as travel fatigue is not something people just dream up as a debilitating factor in first matches on tour in Australasia.

Traveling from Cape Town to Hamilton for a first game is a tough ask, particularly just seven days after such a massive game against the Crusaders, who themselves appeared to carry the hangover from that game into their clash with the Cheetahs. The Stormers players looked leaden-footed in those last minutes and for good reason.

So if we really want to judge their mental strength maybe the next few weeks is when we do it. The league battle has reached a crucial phase, and the Stormers are under pressure as they are the team playing overseas at the moment.

To achieve their objective of finishing in the top two of the overall log they have to win just about every remaining match. So now is when the BMT teams stand up, and if the Stormers manage it, starting with the game against the Blues, then this little mid-season slump will be remembered as no more than a small aberration.